rawhide lacing techniques for cedarwood canoe/bow seat

T

teoteocan

New Member
greetings wooden canoe aficionados!

i am searching for some plans/mathematics of how to re-lace, with rawhide lacing, the standard pattern for an already drilled wooden bow seat...17 holes across & 7 holes down...on a beautiful old cedarwood canoe...

i've never done it before, this is my first attempt...

any links, directions, advice, tutorials, complicated/outta the norm lacing patterns would be greatly appreciated...thanks!

best,
t
 
If you search this forum (upper right corner), you should find a lot of information on rawhide, or "babiche" seats. Don't recall if there were instructions on the forum, but there should be some great leads on where to find them. Good luck, and post pictures... we like pictures!
 
If you need photo's from the underside please let me know.
 

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Are the drilled holes always staggered as in these pictures or can it work just as well with straight line drill holes?
 
My Old Town 15' 50 pounder originally had caned seats, but when I got it, the cane had been replaced with rawhide lacing:

sm 100_2705.JPG sm 100_2706.JPG

I removed the lacing:

sm 100_2710.JPG

and as a matter of personal preference, recaned:

sm after.JPG

But the lacing was strong and functional when I removed it, and the straight line holes didn't seem to cause any problem
 
The old Penn Yan Rainbow from 1946 I've been tinkering on had plywood seats. I removed the plywood and found drilled holes inset in a 1/4" deep rabbit. I don't want to weave cane and I don't like the idea of pre-woven cane. I would go with babiche as it seems as though these holes were drilled with babiche in mind.
Greg, is that a rabbit on those seats? It's hard to tell from the pic - I am going to the eye doctor on Friday.
 
Howard Caplan said:
The old Penn Yan Rainbow from 1946 I've been tinkering on had plywood seats. I removed the plywood and found drilled holes inset in a 1/4" deep rabbit. I don't want to weave cane and I don't like the idea of pre-woven cane. I would go with babiche as it seems as though these holes were drilled with babiche in mind.
Click to expand...

Penn Yan, so far as I know, never used babiche or rawhide for their seats. A Penn Yan canoe of that vintage had plywood seats from the factory, as cane was not available due to the war.
 
Howard Caplan said:
Greg, is that a rabbit on those seats? It's hard to tell from the pic - I am going to the eye doctor on Friday.
Click to expand...

No. The holes are just drilled into the seat frame for the original hand-woven cane that was replaced with the rawhide lacing. These pictures may be more clear:

sm seat bow.jpg sm seat stern.jpg
 
If the OP was referring to the brand "Cedarwood", their Pal model came with cane seats, not babiche. As far as I know.
 
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