Old town Build Records First fill and 2nd fill? What’s that all about?

[Douglas Kestell]

For those that have restored an Oldtown and have received the original build records from Benson- what is does it mean First fill and 2nd fill?

When I have filed canvas, I was told that it is a one shot deal- when you start the fill process you have to continue until completion.

Was this a different method or was filler with white lead back then so different that you could apply filler twice?

Just curious

Thanks

 

[Michael Grace]

It appears that Old Town filled canvas for the first time, then waited some time (weeks to sometimes even months) before applying filler again. Kennebec did the same thing. Two different fill dates are indicated on Old Town build records up through mid-1949 when it seems they abandoned this practice and only filled on a single day (or stopped noting the second fill on the build record). What changed and why is it recommended now to do all filling at once? Not sure. This timeframe does not correlate with removal of lead from the filler formula from what I remember, nor does it correlate with any other known changes in filler composition.

I normally do all of my filling on a single day because of the lore and in order to just get the job finished, but have added an additional coat of traditional filler some weeks after the initial filling day. In the many years since, that canoe's filler hasn't failed. I'm away from my Seliga book right now, but seem to recall that his practice was to fill over two distinct times - someone please elaborate, or correct this if wrong.

 

[Dave Osborn]

I restored a Jerry Stelmok canoe and wanting to be true to the brand, I used Jerry’s filler.
I had just finished the second time around the canoe with filler and was called away for an emergency. I wasn’t able to get back to it until the next day. Not knowing whether I should apply the final coat, I called Jerry and his suggestion was to not apply more and leave it as it was with just two coats.
It worked out just fine.

 

[Dan Lindberg]

Joe - just read/referenced the book,

it appears that he puts on 1 heavy coat and 1 or 2 more thin coats the 1st day,
then he lets it dry for "a couple days"
then sands it smooth,
and finally, 1 more "very light" last coat
and then it sits for "about a month" to dry.

Note that a whole 1/2 page of text describes Joe's canvasing with the comments that Joe "spent considerable time" researching and experimenting with his filler over 30 years and still wasn't happy with it. At which time (1967), he visited Old Town and a "1 man builder located across the river from OTC" who shared his filler recipe, which Joe "tweaked" and finally got filler he was happy with.