Looking for Guide boat hardware

[Rdrcoon]

While not a canoe, the guide boat we are building is a 16 1/2 foot Virginia replica, 1 inch stripper- mostly mahogany. Am trying in vain to find a choice of traditional style oarlocks & straps. Shaw & Tenney's are great, just hoping to find others to choose from.
You folks & your vast knowledge of the language of BOAT is nothing short of amazing- so who better to ask?

 

[Dan Miller]

Shaw and Tenney is the only source of new guideboat hardware. I've been able to pick up the occasional pair or set of four plates on the flea market circuit (or rarely, Ebay). Same for horns, but never a matched set of horns and plates together...

 

[Dan Miller]

Why are you making them smaller? And, will they be cast bronze or are you fabricating them a different way?

 

[Dave Osborn]

this place may have what you are looking for....
http://www.bristolbronze.com/

 

[Benson Gray]

There has been a wide range of reactions to Bristol Bronze. My experiences have not been positive. The information at http://www.bbb.org/boston/business-...ibutors/bristol-bronze-in-tiverton-ri-106175/ indicates that others have had similar problems. Bob Lavertue of Springfield Fan Centerboard at 456 Fuller Street, Ludlow, Massachusetts 01056, (413) 547-8364 has a much better reputation.

Benson

 

[Dave Osborn]

Thanks for the heads up Benson! I have never done business with Bristol Bronze, but have saved their website for many years. I was unaware of the complaints.

 

[Dan Miller]

I've got a variety of vintage guideboat straps that I've collected for my own casting patterns, and they are all pretty consistent in size, I guess I am not sure why you are shortening them - especially if part of your potential market is as replacements for vintage guideboats...

Dan

 

[Dan Miller]

I haven't cast anything for guideboats, yet. Just getting into it. I've done a couple workshops with Sam Johnson and have my own little foundry about 90% ready to go (and when I get my new shop built over the next year it will be part of that). I've been concentrating on sailing canoe parts - there's just as little demand for that as there is for guideboat parts! I'll be sand casting (petrobond) in silicon bronze. I made a propane-fired furnace using Sam's instructions using a 5-gallon metal can, refractory cement, a blower from MSC. and random hardware store parts

The casting part is the easy part, its the post-casting finishing that's the challenge for me!

I'm fortunate to have a vintage John Blanchard guideboat with its original hardware. I'd like to take the lines sometime and reproduce it, and have been talking to the resident guideboat builder at the Adirondack Museum about collaborating on it, as she may build one as well.

 

[Gary Willoughby]

I think that Woodward Boat Shop in Saranac Lake NY sells them.