Old Town Pea Pod

[Howie]

A friend pulled in a few days ago with this Old Town Pea Pod for me to restore. Serial # is 138694-16.

Can someone (Benson?) please get me the build sheet as well as the date it was completed?

I/we are interested to learn the type of wood the seats are made from. Its grain is quite straight. Cedar?

 

[Benson Gray]

The Old Town with serial number 138694 is a 16 foot long double end boat model in CS (Common Sense or the middle) grade with open spruce gunwales, a keel, and a floor rack. It was built between November, 1943 and January, 1944. The original exterior paint color was dark green. It shipped on May 6th, 1944 to Watkins Glen, New York. A scans showing this build record can be found below.

This scan and several hundred thousand more were created with substantial grants from the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association (WCHA) and others as you probably know well. A description of the project to preserve these records is available at http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/old-town/records/ if you want more details. I hope that you will donate or renew your membership to the WCHA so that services like this can continue. See https://www.woodencanoe.org/about to learn more about the WCHA and https://www.woodencanoe.org/shop to donate or join.

It is also possible that you could have another number or manufacturer if this description doesn't match. The seat wood is not specified but it could be cedar. Feel free to reply here if you have any other questions,

Benson

 

[Howie]

Thankyou Benson!

 

[JClearwater]

Howie,
Your Double End is only slightly younger than ours. Ours is 1943, serial #137321. It had a lot of steel tacks in it being a war time build so I ended up adding at least one brass tack through every plank on every rib even if the steel tacks looked solid. Yours may have steel tacks too.
The plank seats on our boat are spruce with very nice tight grain. There should be seat backs for the bow and stern seats on your boat.
Good luck with the restoration. It looks to be in decent shape.
Jim C.

Thread 'Stephanie Lynn is finished'

Jul 7, 2014

Stephanie Lynn is finally finished after nearly two years of free time effort. This is a 1943 CS grade Old Town Double End Boat. I replaced four ribs that were badly broken, repaired two others, about 10 ft. of planking, tips of stern inwales, replaced both decks (one was split badly so I replaced both so they matched) with Cherry and made a new floor rack and outwales which had gone missing before I got the boat. The sail rig was missing the mast step, both lee boards, lee board thwart, mast partner and all the hardware. I made all those parts. This boat was never varnished on the...

• JClearwater
• Replies: 7
• Forum: Canoe Sailing

 

[Howie]

Jim... Thanks for the bad news about steel tacks. I havent removed the canvas yet - I just removed all the stuff that's screwed down down except for the keel and external stems. But I expect you're right though as I've come across some rusted steel screws that were a joy to remove. No way can I add these tacks to the center of the canoe myself. Happily the canoes owner is quite willing to lend a hand - or arm - in the restoration.

And thanks for identifying the seat wood as spruce. Ic wonder how likely is it to find a single piece of spruce 12" wide today...

 

[Howie]

And Jim, can you send me a pic of the seat backs. I plan on making some backs that have some sort of woven cane in them, but I'd like to see the originals. Thanks...