morris rstoration

steve morang

Curious about Wooden Canoes
I am restoring a 1916 morris canoe with closed gunwales. Most of the restoration is gunwale and stem repair. If anyone could help with construction techniques or photographs detailing the deck areas would be very much appreciated. The style of gunwale is the more common one, not the d shaped design. Thanks for any help.
 
Hi Steve,

Which stye of decks does your Morris have, and what is it you need to know about them? Morris made canoes with decks in a variety of lengths and multiple construction methods. Photos of yours - the decks and the issues you're facing - would help.

As a start, here is a thread showing some details of a short-deck Morris (the photo in post #6 might be helpful):

http://wcha.org/forums/index.php?threads/1912-b-n-morris-canoe.15931

And here is a thread showing a longer-decked Morris:

http://wcha.org/forums/index.php?threads/help-iding-old-wooden-canoe.15741

There's also a photo of this longer-decked type in the last post of the first thread above - this is one of ours that I restored, but it contains all-original parts. Finally, attached here is a thumbnail photo of another short-deck, closed-gunwale Morris, unrestored. You can see how everything comes together similarly in both of these deck styles (both closed-gunwale canoes with thin top and outside gunwale caps), even though the short decks are solid and the longer decks are mahogany panels attached to a supporting framework.

Morris short deck closed gunwale.jpg
 
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