I misspelled Canadienne … lol looking for the edit post button!
Most makers measured beam at the molded hull which did not include the outwales but I am not sure what Old Town’s practice was in this regard.
I have an old catalog that lists the gunwale width at 33 1/2" for the 16’ Canadienne and 35" for the 17’ Canadienne. But it shows a gunwale width of 36" for the 17’ Canadienne with wood gunwales.
Ordinarily the choice of gunwales would not be expected to change the beam at the molded hull so possibly Old Town did include the width of the outwales in that 36" measurement.
Yes, it is a good idea to block out the hull to designated width before applying any fabric patches and before replacing the gunwales. Any stick cut to length will work for that purpose. I think if you blocked out the hull to a maximum beam of 35" at the molded hull you will be close enough to correct. An inch either way is not going to make that much difference.
As for photos if you do a Google image search you will find quite a few photos of Canadiennes that should provide a reasonably good guide to seat, thwart, and yoke placement.
Wow, you have a heck of a project in that one
Thanks so much for replying… I started looking through the pieces of wood that was inside the canoe when I picked it up… I’m in luck I have a 1 ft. Piece of the original outer and a 3 ft. Piece of the inner. I have the original yolk… deterioted on on end … But one good end… so I have estimated The other end … judging by screw holes. I think I’ve worked it out. I need to find out the placement if the yolk to be positive on this… if any one has this model please post… center pulled from bow or stern…
I assume it’s dead center?.. I’m keep reading and hopefully learn a little. And take my time and enjoy this project… I’m also a scoutmaster… and hope to involve my troop in this restoration…
Thanks again
Yes it is. Gonna have a good time with it I hope!
The fellow who gave me this canoe ,also gave me a square yard of really fine premium select 9 oz double bias no mat fiber glass… I’m wondering if this would be well enough? Should I go for kevlar?
That one is pretty rough. Sometimes it can be difficult to recover the right shape of a boat with damaged thwarts, seats and gunwales. Hard to say if that boat is worth repairing without seeing it in person. Get some more opinions before you start.
I have repaired several kevlar canoes and many fiberglass ones and use pretty much the same materials on all of the them. I like quality marine epoxy made for your temperature range you are working in and quality glass cloth. There are several iterations now. No need for kevlar cloth,. Avoid matting, kitty hair and some of that other stuff.
The canoe was damaged by a falling limb. It was left in the woods and the wood rotted.
Other than the damage… it appeared to almost never have been used… no scratched bottom
The paint other than fading… is nearly pristine… that’s what made me decide to restore it… I could probably buy a decent boat for what I’ll spend … but hey!! It’s so classic . I love it.
For a through and through crack on a composite boat I will usually apply patches to both the interior and exterior of the hull. But if the exterior of the hull is in really good condition and you want to go for a maximally cosmetic result, for a clean linear crack like that you can probably get by with applying a two to three layer patch on the hull interior and simply bond the crack together on the exterior using epoxy moderately thickened with silica gel powder.
I like West System 105 epoxy resin and 206 slow hardener which allows for generous working time. But there are many quality epoxies available and some are cheaper. Some other makers are MAS, System Three, RAKA, and the Total Boat epoxy sold by Jamestown Outfitters.
As for fabric I would use a plain weave 5 ounce/square yard aramid fabric (Kevlar is one example) on the interior although you could certainly use 6 ounce/square yard plain weave fiberglass. S fiberglass would be preferable to E fiberglass as it is stronger but also more expensive. Any of these fabrics are relatively easy to wet out with epoxy.
The rationale for using aramid fabric on the hull interior is that aramid fibers have great strength when submitted to tensile stress and any impact on the hull interior that deforms the hull side inward will stretch those interior fibers. It also has a higher strength to weight ratio than even S fiberglass. On the other hand, S fiberglass is pretty strong and fiberglass patches will be somewhat less noticeable than aramid patches on the hull interior. And the weight difference won’t be that much if we are just talking about a few patches.
If you do apply an exterior patch it should be fiberglass, preferably S type as aramid tends to abrade and the edges of an aramid patch cannot be feathered by sanding as the material fuzzes up with abrasion. But if you patch the exterior you will need to sand off all the exterior gel coat over the area the patch will cover until you see the fibers of the underlying structural fabric.
When applying a multi-layer patch make the patches successively concentrically smaller in size so as to diffuse the stress riser that inevitably results at the edge of a patch. The largest patch should overlap the crack onto intact hull by at least 2 inches. You also want to cut your patches on the bias so that the lines of the weft and weave of the fabric cross the linear crack at angles rather than perpendicular, and cut the patches so that the fibers of each patch are aligned at different angles to each other. This will maximize strength.
The Canadiennes that I have seen have all had sliding front seats. Replacing yokes, thwarts and seats is not at all difficult. Ed’s Canoe and Essex Industries are both good sources for these and sliding front seat kits are available. As for center yoke placement you want to position it at the central balance point of the hull if you want to use it to portage the canoe. For a symmetrical hull that is at the longitudinal center but for an asymmetrical hull it may need to be displaced a little forward or aft. It is usually easy to determine the balance point after the boat is rerailed and the seats, all other thwarts, carry handles and the deck plates are installed.
Your seat placement need not correspond exactly to stock. In fact, I have found that the seats in some tandems are placed such that the trim of the boat is more bow light than I would prefer. Using a sliding forward seat will give you some latitude is seat placement. For a tandem canoe the front seat needs to be placed far enough back that the bow paddler has adequate leg room. So decide on bow seat placement first. If using a sliding seat place the frame such that there is enough leg room for the smallest person likely to paddle in the bow with the seat frame positioned all the way forward. Once bow seat placement is determined you can position the stern seat. To maximize the area available for gear you would like to place the stern seat as far aft as possible. But proper trim and the width of the seating surface of the seat itself will impose some constraints.
Stern seats that are tucked as far into the stern as possible often result in a boat that is trimmed quite bow light if the bow seat is positioned to allow the bow paddler to have generous leg room. I usually figure that the center of gravity of a seated paddler is somewhere around 1 to 1 1/2" in front of the forward edge of the seat frame. So you can use that to determine the stern seat placement. I prefer a canoe that has neutral trim in the water. Again, a sliding seat in the bow allows for easy trim adjustment.
Your biggest problem is probably going to be finding wood for gunwales. It has become pretty hard to find straight grained ash pieces for a long boat like that and the inwales and outwales will need to be roughly 6 inches longer than the overall length of the canoe. I suspect that you will need to join two or more pieces together with scarf joints. When scarfing both inwales and outwales you want to offset the joints.
Jason you are not seeing this canoe clearly at all by using the word pristine.
It has been eaten up by the sun and weathering.
pblanc has laid out an elegant and detailed plan for repair. Would you attempt to bring this canoe back?
Ok I’ll give up to you on pristine. Not really a correct description… Let’s say not beat up…
Thank you so much for the info in patching… I’m inexperienced to say the least…
I had in my mind to do a sturdier patch on the inside… and a lighter one on the outside…
As far as as finish goes… my plan was to match paint.as best I could and feather the patch…
However… I have one other issues… the top of the freeboard where the gunnells attach seems to have excessive holes… a few of them even missed and cut through the edge… so I’ve decided I need to patch it…probably one long strip from bow to stern. In this case I’m giving up on the orginal lettering… this stings…but solves the issue of matching paint ,cause now I can just paint the entire canoe…
As far as the wood goes… Have you ever used hickory…I know I’ll have to probably steam bend…
Ok thanks again and to directly answer… yes!
I’m gonna bring her back!!
This is a little heavier than what you were recommending… Ill use for inside… pblanc.your thoughts on reinforcing… freeboard… will I do just as well by filling these holes with epoxy.
I would really love to keep the factory lettering… It’s ok with me if the patch paint isn’t perfect… I think the original paint will buff up… and I can just clear coat…
P
Seats and thoarts .yolk I will custom make… I’m no stranger to woodcraft… and this will be enjoyable to me. …I will want a center seat …
I’ve seen the snap on kind but actually see no reason to spend that much… unless?
Will the third seat… put to much stress on gunnells… weight distribution 220lb (me) stern
210lbs. (My son ) center 140 lbs(my wife) in the bow… 570 lbs seems like a lot of weight on a piece of wood 3/4by7/8… have u guys had any xp with this… ?
It is not uncommon when removing gunwales to find that some of the screw holes have gone through the top edge of the sheer line of the hull. That is especially so with kerfed outwales where a small wooden lip covers over the hull itself. If you want to avoid that in future, simply sandwich the inwales and outwales so that the top of the gunwales sits flush with the top of the hull. But it doesn’t look quite as elegant. If you have holes that are closer than 6 inches apart, the boat was probably rerailed at some point.
If you feel the sheer line of the hull needs reinforcement the easiest way to do it is to run a strip of fiberglass tape down the interior of the hull. This need be done on the interior side only. I would overlap the top edge of the hull a bit and then trim off the selvage edge that sticks up above the hull and sand the tape off smooth and flush with the top of the hull when the epoxy is fully cured. I have done this on one or two boats. Otherwise just fill the holes with epoxy thickened a bit with colloidal silica powder (cab-o-sil).
I haven’t heard of people using hickory for gunwales but I am sure it has been done. Mahogany, cherry, spruce, oak, maple, sassafras, and even pine have all been used but ash is the most common, despite its tendency to rot. I have always stuck to ash but you probably no more about the characteristics of various woods than I do.
As to hanging weight from the inwales as long as you keep the inwales 1 inch thick (which is why you want to kerf the outwales and not the inwales if you are going to) and use stainless machine screws no larger than #10 (which is the standard) I don’t think you will have any trouble. Some canoe hulls are designed in such a way that the hull itself is not strong enough to suspend seats from the gunwales and the seats must be hung from reinforced areas of the sides of the hull or directly on the hull bottom. But the Canadienne is not one of those.
I personally would not paint the whole boat unless the gel coat is in bad shape. If the bottom is scratched up you could paint it up to a 3 or 4 inch waterline. I have used Pettit Easypoxy paint on a few hull bottoms with good results. Painting the entire hull on a boat of that size will add more weight than you might imagine. If you patch the exterior I would simply cover the repair with a paint that offers the closest color match to the existing gel coat that you can find. If it is on the hull side it will not be subject to scratching too badly and it is not hard to repaint as needed.
I could not see whatever image you tried to upload. As for fabrics I think the best source is Sweet Composites which also sells West System epoxy products: SWEET COMPOSITES -- FRP Materials & Supplies If you are going to use an exterior patch I suggest using the style 6533-60 S fiberglass shown on this page which is a plain weave, 6 ounce/square yard S 'glass. SWEET COMPOSITES - Fiberglass Fabrics
I have used a lot of this stuff with excellent results. It wets out very nicely which is not always the case for some S 'glass fabrics. This would work great for both exterior and interior patches.
If you want to use aramid for interior patches instead of S 'glass I would use the style 500-50 shown on this page which is a plain weave 5 ounce/square yard fabric: SWEET COMPOSITES - Kevlar, Graphite & Hybrid Fabrics
If you are going to reinforce the sheer line you will also want around around 12-13 yards of fiberglass seam tape of whatever width you feel is appropriate: SWEET COMPOSITES - Glass, Kevlar, and Polyester Seam Tape
If you have never done any laminating work with fabric and epoxy I suggest you take the time to read some of the appropriate chapters of “The Epoxy Book” available on-line from System Three: About the System Three Epoxy Book – System Three Resins
This book has a lot of good information regarding epoxy chemistry and handling and repair of composite boats using fabrics. The book makes reference to System Three epoxy products naturally, but all epoxies handle similarly. But the mixing ratios between resin and hardener will vary with different epoxies so if you use an epoxy other than System Three mix according to the instructions that came with that epoxy rather than what is in the book.
Keep us posted. Those back from the grave refurbs just have to be done sometimes against all common sense.
I did a MR Revelation a while back. I should have sawed it into pieces and trashed it. It was an absurd undertaking. But now there’s a boat out there plying the waters again (hopefully).
Pblanc thanks so much again for taking the time to advise. And for the links.
My first step is to build a canoe house … talked the over with my better half today 
. I have an old greenhouse frame …a 20 by 16 retired ground cloth… then some supports to put the canoe at a good working height…and I have a lumber yard / hardware store across the street… once I get the temp gunwale s and thoarts installed I’ll post some more pics of the damage… crossing the patches at angles makes a lot of sense… the photo I tried to post was the specs on the material I already have… it’s a marine grade double bias no mat fiberglass… but is 9 oz… a little heavier than what you have been recommending… I want to ask if you if this ok for the inner patch…yours truly
Jake
I will and thanks for the interest… Pblanc has helped so much already I gonna have to buy him a beer!
Sure, you could use it. Rather than using mulit-layer biaxial or double bias fabrics I prefer to use two single layers of a lighter plain weave fabric and I prefer S fiberglass over E fiberglass for its significantly greater strength and abrasion resistance.
Your biaxial fabric is very likely E fiberglass. With a multi-layer patch you can orient the fibers any way you like and you can make successive layers concentrically smaller. The separate layers are also easier to wet out than a single thicker fabric and the edges of the patches will be easier to feather.
You would like insofar as possible to avoid a relatively thick, stiff patch that ends at an abrupt edge as the edge of the patch tends to create a stress riser that might promote cracking at the edge of the patch, although this is much less likely to be a problem on the side of the hull than the bottom of the hull.
You might also consider getting some mold release fabric (known as “peel ply”). This is especially helpful if you plan to use any aramid fabrics. Covering the wetted out patches with peel ply which is later removed helps create a smooth edge to the patch. Otherwise the resin tends to swell the fibers at the edge of the patch creating a raised edge. Fiberglass patches can be feathered after the epoxy cures but aramid is more difficult to deal with. And the peel ply will reduce the amount of sanding required to smooth the edges of fiberglass patches.