Old Town questions. Help please Benson!

[Howie]

Benson! I just picked up an Old Town serial # 121969-16. Can you tell me what I lucked into?

What a great day - I was recanvassing a canoe in the morning, and while taking a break I checked CraigsList & see this Old Town canoe for $100. 2 hours later & it's mine! It's in great shape - easily restorable. Here's some pics:



Two curious things though - see pics below.
1) There is a metal (brass?) bracket at the center of each inwale. The bracket appears to have a little finger that may have meant to supported something at one time, but the finger seems way too flimsy to support a center yoke thwart. Any idea what it was for?
2) And centered about the 4 inwale bolts as well as the two brackets mentioned above are two screws that extend from the inwale to the outwale. Guess they're meant to anchor the inwales to the outwales more securely at these stress locations. Don't believe I've seen that before.

 

[Greg Nolan]

Howie --

I have no idea what those little brackets are, but I had a question a while back screws through the inwales into the outwales, and there is a discussion at http://forums.wcha.org/showthread.php?11731-Why-these-screws&highlight=bolts that might apply. Benson (or someone else who may know about the brackets) should be along in a while.

Greg

 

[Greg Nolan]

The Old Town canoe with serial number 121969 is shown as 16 feet long, CS (common sense or standard) grade, Yankee model with open spruce gunwales, oak decks, thwarts, and seats, and equipped with a keel. The canoe was built between June and August 1937. The original exterior paint was dark green. It was shipped to Blossvale, New York on August 13, (probably) 1937. A scan of this build record can be found by following the link behind the thumbnail images attached below.



This scan and several hundred thousand others 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/about-the-wcha/ to learn more about the WCHA and http://store.wcha.org/WCHA-New-Membership.html to join.

It is also possible that you could have another number or manufacturer if this description doesn't match your canoe.

Feel free to reply here if you have any other questions.

Greg

 

[pklonowski]

These things just start following you home...

Hey Mom, can I keep him?

 

[Benson Gray]

I've not seen a bracket like that before and there is nothing unusual noted on the build record so it was probably added after the canoe left the factory. Canoes often seem to pick up extra hardware over the years and it can be very difficult to guess what the original purpose was. Screws like that were common in the 1930s as Greg mentioned. Nice find,

Benson

 

[Craig Johnson]

pretty sure that is a curtain rod hanging bracket, but no idea why it is there. Maybe just to mark where to put the clamp on yoke, I just use a piece of tape so I don't have to count ribs to find the middle.

 

[Howie]

Thanks for the comments everyone.
As to the brackets... The fact that they are each surrounded by 2 screws just like those located by the thwarts suggests to me that they were put in by Old Town. A mystery. Hopefully they're brass & will polish up nice! Wait - you know the slatted wooden 'seat backs' you sometimes see on older canoes? The type you rest your back on when sitting on the floor. Maybe this bracket once supported such a seat back - it's gotta rest against something... Or maybe they held a curtain rod - a curtain to obscure the lower bits of the lady sitting sitting in front?

 

[MackyM]

Will this canoe be at the Assembly?

 

[Howie]

Hi Macky! No... not going to the Assembly this year.

Hey... weren't you going to look up the serial # of your PY Hunter for me??? Speaking of which, it's almost time to paint my 'new' Hunter. Yesterday it came out from under the deck after 7 weeks of drying. And in its place went a PY Rainbow that I mudded earlier in the day. Progress! I'll start on this Yankee today.

 

[Howie]

Macky - Just mentioned your note to the wife. Says she might like to see the Adirondacks... so maybe we'll attend the Assembly for a day. Won't likely bring a canoe though - we'd travel on to the 1000 Islands. You plan to be there? Which days?

 

[MackyM]

Hello Howie,
I will try to get that number from the Pen Yan Tuesday night. And of course I will be at the Assembly all week. I look forward to this all year. Let me know which day you will be there.

 

[Dan Miller]

we'd travel on to the 1000 Islands.

Anyone who is anyone in the Thousand Islands will be at Paul Smith's that week...

But if you are still in the area after Assembly ends, you are welcome to pop in here, or check out my projects at the boat museum.

 

[Howie]

Dan, I'm an idiot. I've used your web sites many times to help ID canoes, and you've replied to many of my Thread questions, but I never associated Dragonfly Canoe Works with Dan Miller. So tell me more about Dragonfly Canoe Works. Is it your private work shop?, or a store where you sell canoe related stuff? I mean, is it a place where folks can just drop in - like a store? or should I call first if I was in the area & wanted a look-see?

 

[Dan Miller]

Howie, DCW is more or less a hobby at this point. I've taken a circuitous route from a huge restoration and building shop in Wisconsin, through some house restoration, to curating at a maritime museum, and now editor and webmaster for this wonderful organization (WCHA). I am building a new shop, a timber frame that if I may say so myself is pretty cool with the idea of poking at boat, guitar, camera, and other projects as time allows. I'm also spending a couple days a week demonstrating canoe building at the boat museum in Clayton this summer.

Visitors are welcome - I'm happy to spend time in the shop and/or with my archival collection with visitors. Best to call first, because who knows where I'll be at any given moment!

And as for Dragonfly Canoe Works, it is being slowly transformed into DragonflyCanoe Media, since that better reflects where my professional activities lie.