I am about to begin restoration of an Old Town, 17', CS/HW, #127140, and want to bring it back to it's original condition, as authentic as possible. Removing the seats, which both need re-canning, I notice a poor repair done at some point in the distant past.
The rear seat is in reasonable shape, the edges of the wood rounded over as expected, and the pre-woven cane held in grooves with splines. (Please excuse my terminology, if it is not quite correct.)
And then there is the front seat, where I see one long and one short member with holes, as if it originally had hand-woven cane, and the other two members have no holes. The two long members are not the same width, and not all of the edges of the wood have been rounded over. I suspect one long member (without holes for cane) is part of a poor repair, and not original. The cane that is in this seat is the pre-woven in a groove.
I am told that 1939 is about the time Old Town switched away from the hand woven cane in seats, but it would be peculiar if they had put a hand-woven in the front, and pre-woven in the rear.
So the question is - can we figure out how this canoe was equipped when it left the factory?
I have noticed the recent threads on the bolts & spacers. The seats in this canoe were held in by hex head steel bolts with self-locking nuts, with wood dowels for spacers. The thwarts are held in with essentially the same. Is this original hardware? Thanks for the advice. Tom McCloud WCHA4654
The rear seat is in reasonable shape, the edges of the wood rounded over as expected, and the pre-woven cane held in grooves with splines. (Please excuse my terminology, if it is not quite correct.)
And then there is the front seat, where I see one long and one short member with holes, as if it originally had hand-woven cane, and the other two members have no holes. The two long members are not the same width, and not all of the edges of the wood have been rounded over. I suspect one long member (without holes for cane) is part of a poor repair, and not original. The cane that is in this seat is the pre-woven in a groove.
I am told that 1939 is about the time Old Town switched away from the hand woven cane in seats, but it would be peculiar if they had put a hand-woven in the front, and pre-woven in the rear.
So the question is - can we figure out how this canoe was equipped when it left the factory?
I have noticed the recent threads on the bolts & spacers. The seats in this canoe were held in by hex head steel bolts with self-locking nuts, with wood dowels for spacers. The thwarts are held in with essentially the same. Is this original hardware? Thanks for the advice. Tom McCloud WCHA4654
