Veazie - Need tracings of decks

[Howie]

Just came home with what I'm told by SkiFree is a 16' Veazie (thanks Mike and Scott). Has splayed stems, plus external stems, and two cant ribs. One deck has been replaced, but the other, although somewhat mangled, has what looks to be a keyhole. One original thwart, nicely shaped. And nice seats. Also came with a nice slab of birds-eye maple! Here are some pics:


Ibelieve this is the same canoe mentioned here in 2012 by SkiFree. It's in very nice restorable shape: a couple of iffy ribs and badly repaired inner rail break, but no big problems. Haven't had time to look for identifying things like stampings, badges, or badge nail holes, but was told there aren't any.

I've read the Thread info from 2012 (key words Veazie & SkiFree). Can anyone add to this? Like, do we have a better way of dating it?

Now: can someone supply me with a tracing of a Veazie deck? I need to put that maple to good use!

 

[MGC]

Howie, nice haul...better get it inside before the deer start chewing on it.
The Veazie I have is a long deck...not the keyhole style that you need to fabricate.
WRT dating, I'm still hoping that the folks that I got mine from will be able to provide an specific date for when the canoe was delivered to their cottage in the 19XX's...they have been studying the very detailed family journals that document almost any major occurrence at the cottage (even the planting of the garden). It's possible that they might find a reference to the specific day when the canoe was delivered to the camp by steamboat from Canandaigua... the canoe has a brass tag. If yours is without tag, that's going to be a bit of a challenge to date. It appears that (except in this case the decks) there were often no differences between Veazie's and Morris canoes. Mine is made exactly to Morris specifications including the long mahogany decks etc. You might want to see if the "squirrel whisperer" has the information you need.

 

[Scott Rowe]

one of the things I noticed is that I didn't see any rivets in the stems. but it also looks like it has outer stems that have been faired in with putty at some point? Rivets might not have been used if there is an outer stem right? Keel is mounted at every rib. I looked for tags and tag holes but couldn't find any. Knew you were the guy to get this floating again! Not sure about this but seats have cane holes that look like they were never used.

 

[Howie]

MGC: Really? Delivered by steamboat? That's a great story.

 

[Howie]

As to the Veazie... I can find no ID markings, nor nails holes to suggest there was once a badge.

Someone added putty to all the keel screws, so they'll be a treat to dig out.

The brass stem bands are all intact as far as I can tell. And from the inside I see what appear to be rivet ends, but also see the pointy ends of some big wood screws. The latter may be holding the external stem in place.

Ya know... I understand the stems are of soft wood (cedar?), so you don't want to use wood screws. But why not hold the stem bands in place with #4 or #6 machine screws & nuts & washers? Then there'd be no problem with tightening too much. Makes more sense to me than rivets. And if someone wanted authenticity he could remove the screws & add rivets later on.

 

[MGC]

MGC: Really? Delivered by steamboat? That's a great story.

The canoe has an interesting history all within one family. The steamboat delivery is one of the interesting anecdotes. If I can get the date pinned down it might make a good story to tell. I'm hopeful...this canoe may be the one that sheds light on the Veazie serial numbers...they are more of a mystery than the Morris numbers.
The tag on mine is in the bow stem...the same as my Morris. It is extremely unlikely that your was built without a tag...the Veazie company started shipping long after Morris started putting tags on his boats.

 

[Kathryn Klos]

Looks like an early Veazie-- two pairs of cant ribs suggest it's likely circa 1905 or a bit after (with "circa" not being exact). We don't know exactly when Morris began selling the Veazie, but it appears to be 1905-08. The "keyhole" deck is the "curved" deck seen on later B.N. Morris canoes (the one that replaces the heart-shape) with a round central cut-out "keyhole". Morris phased out the keyhole-part of this deck around 1910-12. There aren't enough known Veazie canoes to get a handle on exactly when these changes happened. There would have been an oval serial number plate on the left inwale of this canoe, but because Veazie Canoes have their own serial number series and there are so few existing canoes, dating them involves a wider spread of possible years than with the B.N. Morris canoes, even when we know the Veazie's serial number. But given that Morris used the same hulls for B.N. Morris canoes and Veazie canoes, the use of the cant rib count to estimate build year of a Veazie is the same as it is for Morris. So, my thought is this canoe is 1905-ish. Bring it to the Assembly at Paul Smith's in July!

 

[Howie]

Thanks Kathy.

 

[skifree]

Howie, your Veasie was delivered by a VW.

 

[Howie]

What?... a Beetle!

 

[Paul Miller]

Here are some pics of the decks from my canoe. I've posted them years ago, but not sure their still in the system.

The ones I have do seem a bit more finely made than others I've seen.

 

[Howie]

Perfect. Thank you.

 

[Howie]

Paul - could I ask you to measure the diameter of the hole in the deck? I scaled up your pic, and I'm thinking it's 1.5".

 

[Howie]

BTW Scott... You noted in a comment above that my Morris had outer stems and a ton of putty. Well, turns out that those outer stems were added at some previous 'restoration'. I removed them a few weeks ago, and what I saw was bizarre: the canoe's ends are actually nicely tapered to a 3/8" width. But that wasn't good enough for that previous restorer - he added the aforementioned external stems, and built them with a 11/16" inner width, then slightly rounded the outer edges and screwed on 1/2" wide bang plates! And of the two bang plates, one was brass, the other aluminum. The putty you saw was actually a Bondo-like material used to cover up the gap caused by the 11/16" external stem against the 3/8" canoe end.

And did you try to pick the canoe up? It weighed over 82#! Sure, the external stems & Bondo added some weight, as did a chunky keel which was also larded with Bondo. But I also found a fist sized chunk of heavy metal under one of the decks that was used as a sort of spacer.

I'm curious to see what the canoe will weigh when I'm done. I just fixed the broken inner rail and am making new decks.

 

[Paul Miller]

Sorry it took so long, I have to reset my password every time I try and login.

Yes the hole is 1 1/2.