Old Wooden Canoe

[Bill P]

Hello,

I have just finished refurbishing an all wood Canadian wide board rib and batten canoe. This one was made in Ontario about 100 years ago. She's a beauty. I would be interested to hear from anyone else in Australia who has similar canoes. Regards Bill Purcell

[honkongphoie]

wow she looks stunning looks like you have done a very nice job restoring it, do you have any before photos you can post up ?

[Bill P]

Thanks Honko,

Here she is in the foreground when I first brought her home. She looked a bit worse than she actually was.

regards Bill

[Boatmik]

It is such a gorgeous boat. Very few made their way here.

Does it have a plate saying who built it?

There might be one or two more somewhere in OZ, but I would think that they are spectacularly rare here.

MIK

[Bill P]

Hi Mik,

No plates or original decal, but the from the keelson serial no & shape etc it is believed to have been made by Wm..English Canoe Co, Peterborough Ontario CA.

It was paddled around Rudder Grange, Vic a bit,

Bill P

[honkongphoie]

you have done an amazing job of restoring her bill, she must be a fantastic sight on the water.

now this looks like a worthy challenge for me to sink my teeth into, are plans available any more for this type of canoe ?

how are they built is it a moulded ply skin over frames?

[Bill P]

A chap in the US built one from scratch a few years ago. They are built upside down over a mould,similar to the wood canvas method.

It might be difficult to obtain clear boards long enough. This boat is basswood, three boards per side. They were also built in white cedar.,

regards Bill P

[KJL38]

honkongphoie,
The best place to find out if plans are available and more general information is the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association. Their website is http://www.wcha.org/ and their forum is http://forums.wcha.org/index.php

Kelvin

[Arron]

Beautiful. Never seen one before, but wondering where you got it from. Clearly you got another, as seen in the background - is it also original.

Arron

[Bill P]

Hi Arron,

The other one is also a wide board. It's a Peterborough #64, with four cedar boards a side.

I'm keen to know if there's any more of these boats in Australia.

Bill P.

[Still Smilin']

Hi all,

Rollin Thurlow and Jerry Stelmok's book is pretty much all you need to build the wood and canvas version and it would bethe best place to start I would think. I've got it and read it several times. Actually, it was this style of canoe that got me started except that I went off on the Geodesic Airolite path before building one. I have the building form and associated materials including canvas and even two sets of stem moulds of Oak. The building form is in the process of being transported from Cairns to Hobart so if anyone has any bright ideas of building a wood & canvas version between those two points you'd better jump in quick.

To my knowledge there were five of these built off this form in Australia and I know where one is, and could possibly track down another.

I intend to try an find a customer for one of these so that I can have the joy of creating one in Huon and King Billy Pine.

I'll certainly be keeping an eye on this thread........

[Cliff Rogers]

:2tsup:

[Bill P]

Hi Peter,

What a seductive offer.!

Nice form-love the recurved stems. Is it 16'? How come the steel bands are off? is that for storage or something.

Whats the planking stock in the pictured boat? Did you make? Tell us more!

(Just a note for clarification re the wide board canoes I have, they left the factory as all wood , ie without any waterproof covering. They were likely canvassed here sometime between the wars, to stop leakage. I have refurbished them to the earlier condition)

I understand that a number of wood canvas canoes were built in Australia at Rudder Grange on the Yarra in the 1940's.

Bill

[hungry]

I don't know if i should be sticking my oar, or paddle in this case. in here. I purchased a Strip Plank Petersborough Cedar Canoe Kit from Duck Flat Wooden Boats in Adelaide, about 15 years ago. It was the first wooden item i had attempted, apart from benches and shelves. It was a VERY sharp learning curve, learning to loft out the shape and curvature and make the molds. I have a book full of photos, but that was before i had a digital camera. I will have to get it down and take some digital photos of the completed unit. It took me 6 months to build it, and i had to learn as i went. but i was very happy with the results, and was reluctant to use it for quite a while as i didn't want to mark it. But it has had a bit of use now, and i took one of the seats out, and sit on the bottom with a seat back i made to make me more comfy and the canoe more stable. It came in at 26Kgs and was Christened in Lake McKenzie on Frazer Island. The book that i used to make the Canoe was called Canoecraft, A Harrowsmith Illustrated Guide to Fine Woodstrip Constuction, By-- Ted Moores and Merilyn Mohr. An excellent book, goes into every detail

[Still Smilin']

Hi Bill, You've got a good eye for detail. Yes, the bands are stored seperately at the moment and unfortunately the form has been stored out in NQ rain for almost a year. I've just found that out and decided I had better rescue it before it got used for a bonfire. I'll refer your other questions to the builder of these pictured in Canberra so that I don't give out the wrong info. I have had an hour's paddle in one and found it quite stable with that big flat bottom, even unloaded.

[Stephen Clark]

Peter Jones in Hobart drew my attention to the Woodwork Forum site and the discussion regarding the restored 'old wooden canoe' I am the builder of the four canoes mentioned by Peter. The original design is the Peterborough Prospector and they were originally build by the Chestnut Canoe Company in Ontario, Canada in the early part of the twentieth century. I first learned of them when I was living in Wisconsin and read a book by Sigurd Olsen called 'The Lonely Land' in which he describes a trip he made down the Churchill River across the top of Saskatchewan with several friends in these canoes. I and several friends resolved to do the trip ourselves so we obtained two canoes and followed in Sigurd Olsen's wake in the summer of 1966.

I brought one of the canoes home with me after the trip and when I subsequently came to Australia took the lines off that canoe so that I could build one here. I eventually moved from Sydney to the Comboyne Plateau in 1984 and after building a house began building boats. The canoe required a fairly substantial mold which I built and from that constructed four of the Prospector canoes one of which I still have here in Canberra. The others are, as far as I know, in Sydney, Nowra and Comboyne.

As Peter Jones has mentioned, he now is in the process of bringing the mold from Cairns to Hobart. If anyone is interested in buiding such a canoe the line plan is available in the book 'Canoecraft.' As Peter mentioned, the books by Jerry Stelmok and Rollin Thurlow will tell you all you need to know to build one. You could save a lot of time and effort by borrowing or buying the mold from Peter Jones who also has a lot of the materials required. I have a spare piece of canvas and a great many copper tacks. The original canoes were build using eastern white cedar which is very light and is an excellent stream bending timber. For the four canoes I built I used plantation poplar which is comparable to white cedar in weight and bends reasonably well.

These canoes are unsurpassed in their design and performance characteristics as well as being exceptionally beautiful. Once you have seen or used one you will never be able to look and any fibreglass or plastic canoe without wincing. If anyone has any further questions, I would be happy to answer them and give any advice on building such a canoe.

Stephen Clark
denizen_aus@ yahoo.com.au

[Still Smilin']

Good on you Steve. Looks like I've managed to drag you out of your "retirement". How come you didn't mention the hand woven cane seats - I'd like to join a discussion on THAT!!!!!

[Bill P]

Thanks for the marvellous story Stephen. :2tsup:

(I have a beaut book by Roger MacGregor called "When the Chestnut was in flower". I think you'd like it. )

I am bursting with questions.

Is your form derived from an original Chestnut Prospector? Do you know if its the same as Ted Moores' Prospector? Ted gives the specs as: Length 16' 1", Beam 35", Depth 13 1/4"

What did you use for the stems and inwales/outwales? What sort of keel- (I can see screws through every 2nd ribs? )

What did you fill the canvas with? Any idea of the total weight? Any construction pics?

The hand caning looks great. Why buy prefab when you can spend days doing it that way!

Regards Bill P

[Stephen Clark]

Hi Bill,

The book by Roger MacGregor certainly does sound interesting. I will try to track down a copy on Amazon.

Yes, as far as I can tell the canoe I owned and subsequently built is the same as that described by Ted Moore. I have a copy of a reprint of the 1929 catalog of the Peterborough Canoe Company and the Prospector is listed there in five different sizes: 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 feet in length. The 16 footer has a beam of 36" and a depth of 14" and weighs 75 lbs. These dimensions closely match those of my canoe and mine weighs 32 kg My recollection is that the Chestnut Canoe Company took over making the Prospector canoes when the Peterborough company went out of business. I don't know exacly when this was but there is a Chestnut Canoe catalog put out in 1950 so it must have been sometime between 1929 and 1950.

Interestingly, the canoes that I and my friends ordered and took delivery of in 1962 (or was it 1963 - can't remember exactly) arrived with one having a keel and the other without. I suppose this was because we didn't specify which we wanted so we got one of each! The differences were soon apparent on the trip down the Churchill. The canoe with the keel was superior in tracking on the big lakes that were a feature of the Churchill but the one without the keel came into its own in the rapids where quick turning was an advantage. Also, in the rapids the keel had a tendency to catch on rocks and we had several potentially disastrous capsizes because of this.

A few details: I do have some construction photos. I would probably be easiest for me to post photocopies of these to you by snail mail if you can give me your address. Since they are all predigital this would save me from scanning them in. The stems and keel are made from alpine ash - reasonably hard wearing but not too heavy. The gunwales are oregon. I will try to get the recipe for the canvas filler from Peter Jones since I don't seem to have kept a copy when I gave it to him with the form and other miscellaneous materials and tools. The main ingredient is powdered silica.

How is your restoration progressing and what stage are you at.

Best wishes,
Stephen Clark

[Bill P]

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for that.

You're probably better going straight to Roger for the book. (Google "Plumsweep Press" and you should find him.) You'll probably find that the Peterborough catalogue reprint was done by him. He is the custodian of the Chestnut trademarks etc, and he's also got info on the various canoe company interrelationships, takeovers etc.

I was after woodcanvas canoes, but ended up with a pair of older all wood canoes. Oh well. These are now both restored, and will be used for family paddling trips. In addition to the Wm English #4 the top of this post, I have a Peterborough #64, pictured during its relaunch last year.

I probably have enough large canoes at present, although I'd still like to have a wood canvas one.!

Regards Bill P

[Boatmik]

Hi Bill,

A few details: I do have some construction photos. I would probably be easiest for me to post photocopies of these to you by snail mail if you can give me your address. Since they are all predigital this would save me from scanning them in.

Best wishes,
Stephen Clark

Hi Stephen,

I have had reasonable success photographing old photographs using a digital camera.

You have to get them flat, fiddle to get even light with no reflections. Found some zoom so I could get at least a metre or a bit more away from the photos. Maybe even put them on the ground.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_3RD0luq23ZI/SaJaHCRsJFI/AAAAAAAASDU/f0gTyviwrT0/s640/P1060381.JPG

That is the just completed or almost completed Harbour Bridge in the background. 1932 as far as we can guess.

Transparencies I also did using a cheap slide viewer with no internal light. Just held the camera directly on the viewing lens and allowed the autofocus to work with a desklamp about 500mm behind that. Oh - um, I set the white balance of the camera with no slide at all in first.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_3RD0luq23ZI/SaJaUDfZZDI/AAAAAAAASEQ/TJK02l9ZPRU/s512/P1160099.JPG

I kept some boaty ones. I think this is maybe Devon ... 1957

MIK