What's it?

[MGC]

On a lark I looked at a canoe tonight.
On the phone the owner described a brass plaque on the stem. Morris fever took hold and off I went to look at something I have never seen before. It was purchased in the 1940's. It has massive mahogany decks, mahogany inner and outer rails, looks like maple thwarts and carry thwarts and slat seats. And sure enough, this beast did have a brass tag on one stem with six numbers on it, 1166 over 71.
There were the remains of a heart shaped decal on one deck. I could make out the word Lake on the right top of it. I could not tell what had been to the left or on the lower part of the decal. The underside of each deck had a square dado cut running across the width, why?
This odd beast does not look like a New York or a New England canoe, at least I don't think so.
I did not get any pictures.....
Anyone ever seen such a thing? I'm really curious about who may have built it.

 

[Dan Miller]

What Gil said.

 

[Dave Wermuth]

Gil is always right.

the dado and the bolt detail is on my Shell Lake. But My ser number is three numbers/space/three numbers. The planking should look parallel too.

 

[MGC]

That's it.

The deck in your photo's is the same. The canoe I saw was butchered in an earlier repair so the bolt that I see in your picture was not present. The hand thwarts look the same.
Planking ran parallel as noted.

It needs inner and outer rails and decks, a couple feet of planking, all else is quite good.. stems will take another canvas or two.

http://rochester.craigslist.org/boa/1085394234.html

 

[Dan Miller]

The first part of the SN is the model number, Dave's being a 116 (Deluxe) and MGC's being a 1116 (Guide). The only difference between them is that the Deluxe has half ribs.

 

[Dave Wermuth]

yes

mine does have half ribs. I paid somewhat less for mine. Mine does not have tips of stems, wales, decks. I have a large 'drain' hole in mine too. Mine also had been 'glassed. the 'glass was mostly gone and the interior had been stripped. Oh, and I'm a little bit hogged too. And there are no seats. But other than that, it's in pretty good shape. ;-]

 

[MGC]

mine does have half ribs. I paid somewhat less for mine. Mine does not have tips of stems, wales, decks. I have a large 'drain' hole in mine too. Mine also had been 'glassed. the 'glass was mostly gone and the interior had been stripped. Oh, and I'm a little bit hogged too. And there are no seats. But other than that, it's in pretty good shape. ;-]

This one has all nice ribs, a clean interior and sounds like it would be a better fix than the one you have. The owner was talking about the burn pile so maybe you should follow up. I can go back if need be and take a few pics.
The cob job repair that someone did was an attempt to fix rotted tips on stem/stern. They cut through the inner rail to make it easier to work on the decks and then cobbed together a way to pull it all back. The boat has kept it's shape despite this.
To repair the boat you would pull the decks, replace the rails and then put it all back together. Looks very doable if someone is interested.