The Old Town canoe with serial number 118696 is a 16 foot long, CS (common sense or middle) grade, HW (heavy water) model with red western cedar planking, open spruce gunwales, a keel, floor rack, and sponsons. It was built between July, 1936 and March, 1937. The original exterior paint was fire red with Catherine written on the left and right bow in black letters. It shipped on April 24th, 1937 to Jamestown, Penna. A scan of this build record can be found by following the link at the attached thumbnail image below.
This scan and several hundred thousand more were created with substantial grants from the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association (WCHA) and others. A description of the project to preserve these records is available at
http://www.wcha.org/ot_records/ if you want more details. I hope that you will join or renew your membership to the WCHA so that services like this can continue. See
http://www.wcha.org/wcha/ to learn more about the WCHA and
http://www.wcha.org/join.php to join.
It is also possible that you could have another number or manufacturer if this description doesn't match your canoe. The inside and outside gunwales on your canoe were originally spruce. The period catalog page at
http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/old-town/specific.gif has more information about the specifications of your canoe. It also shows the open gunwale construction on the top of the diagram at the bottom. Only the closed gunwales had a top rail cap as shown on the bottom of the diagram. Good luck with the restoration. It sounds like a great family project. Feel free to reply here if this is not clear or if you have any other questions.
Benson
