Welcome back, the Old Town canoe with serial number 185628 is a 16 foot long fiberglass canoe so that isn't a good match. My guess is that you may actually have number 135628. This is an 18 foot long, AA (or top) grade, Otca model with open mahogany gunwales, mahogany decks, mahogany thwarts, mahogany seats, a keel, and floor rack. It was built between June and August, 1942. The original exterior paint color was dark green. It shipped on April, 13th, 1943 to Minneapolis, Minnesota. A scan of 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, join or renew your membership to the WCHA so that services like this can continue. See
http://www.wcha.org/about-wcha to learn more about the WCHA and
http://www.wcha.org/store/membership to join.
It is also possible that you could have another number or manufacturer if this description doesn't match the canoe. The 1943 catalog at
https://www.woodencanoe.org/_files/ugd/537308_b164a4c3d0cd4191b97d04a9a0e93627.pdf has more details on page 5. The information at the first link below may help with the tip and deck repairs. The pictures of the decks and outside gunwales on similar Otcas at
https://wcha.org/classified-archive/Old-Town-Otca.html may also help. Feel free to reply here if you have any other questions. Good luck with the project,
Benson
Rebuilding tips of canoes seems necessary so often simply because otherwise well meaning people find it easy to set a canoe on the ground, overturn it, and leave it there. True, the seats and ribs/interior are protected, and dry for when next you use it. But leaving the tips on the ground means premature wood rot. We see it so often.
I am editing this to put in what I feel is a VERY VERY important point. You need to know what the original stem looked like both side and top views. I made a template using a 17 ft OT HW. I have been back to the other canoe a dozen times and more. I cannot...
