I have used the method of filling holes with epoxy and redrilling after it cures when holes have been made that are oversized, holes were drilled too deep or had worked themselves too deep, when machine screws had been countersunk and I wanted to use finish washers instead, or when carriage bolts had been used and had stripped the wood.
It works very well but is a little more labor and materials intensive.
Best to use an oil such as Watco Teak Oil which breathes yet still protects the wood. Varnish or poly seals in moisture which will cause rot and/or mold to form under the finish.
Update: I hand-fashioned replacement bow and stern carry handles out of scrap pine. Already used spar varnish to seal those and the thwart and yoke, including the bolt holes, which I drilled slightly larger than needed.
I was able to get new hardware from my local outdoor store, which also sells online: https://www.atkenco.com
I have quite a few wood trimmed canoes. Some have oiled gunwales, some have bright finished (varnish, urethane, or varnish over clear epoxy) gunwales. My wooden seat frames, thwarts, yokes, carry handles, and seat hangers likewise are either oiled or bright finished. And I have two stitch and glue wooden kayaks which are varnished over epoxy.
I have not sen any evidence that bright finish “traps” moisture leading to wood rot. On the contrary, I have found end rot of thwarts and gunwales to be far more common with oiled finishes, although this can probably be avoided with more frequent oil application.
Nor have I ever seen mold to form under bright finish. On the other hand, mildew is not uncommon on oil-finished wood.
My experience is just the opposite. I’ve seen lots of mildew on gunwales that have been varnished, but none on those that have been oiled with Watco Teak Oil. It may depend on the humidity levels under which the canoes are stored.
On Nov 26, 2020, at 5:04 PM, pblanc via Paddl
Use locknuts
@Green_Canoe @anon64780766 I have to agree it depends on circumstances - not only of storage but of use (how rough you are on woodwork) and frequency of maintenance as well. I’ve had to replace varnished yokes due to peeling varnish and rot (such as the one pictured above), but only after the canoe was stored outside on the ground, in leave litter and wet dirt, for several years. In “Canoe Paddles - A Complete Guide to Making Your Own” by Warren and Gidmark, they address the oil vs varnish debate. According to them, varnish excludes water better UNTIL a scratch allows water in through a crack - then you’re trapping water inside. Oil doesn’t trap water like varnish does, but does need to be maintained much more often - I’ve heard recommendations to oil paddles twice a year. So, I’m sure it depends where you store your boat, how often you maintain it, and the likelihood of getting a deep scratch in a varnish coat.
Given that Old Town and Wenonah at least use varnished yokes and thwarts, I think I’ll be OK going that route, given that my canoes are stored in the garage these days. I’d rather not have to take them off every year or two to re-oil them. Paddles are much easier to re-oil - you don’t have to un-bolt them from anything first.
We have somewhat departed from the original intent of the thread, but what the heck.
I have a lot of experience using both bright finishes and various types of “penetrating” oils on wood trim of canoes and wooden kayaks. I have used a variety of different types of oils. The best cosmetic results I have obtained have been with Deks Olje, but these days I most frequently use Watco Teak Oil because of its nearly universal availability and reasonable price.
As for bright finishes, I have used a variety of marine varnishes as well as spar urethanes. Nowadays my favorite bright finish is two or three coats of a clear penetrating epoxy such as System Three Clear Coat followed by three coats of marine varnish or urethane. I have found the addition of the penetrating epoxy to significantly enhance the durability of the bright finish.
On canoes that I use in whitewater or those that I expect will see heavy use I always oil the gunwales. With that type of use bright finished gunwales are too frequently and easily scratched up. I will usually also oil the thwarts in whitewater canoes for the same reason. On flat water canoes I tend to favor bright finish as it is more durable and does not require frequent reapplication. Seat frames and seat hangers tend to be relatively protected within the hull of a canoe and those I usually bright finish.
I think oil finishes are very good if they are kept up with. My experience is that they are very, very often not kept up with. Everybody has the good intention to reoil their wood trim at least every 6 months and then life intervenes and several years go by without any reapplication. That is fine if the canoe is being stored indoors and not used.
But it is also my experience that oil does not really “penetrate” to any significant extent and is not very durable. When paddling whitewater in an open boat I frequently drag the heel of my hand along the onside gunwale and pry off my hand against the gunwale of my wood trimmed boats. And after only a single day trip the oil is completely worn off the onside gunwale down to bare wood. So these days I usually prefer synthetic gunwales on whitewater canoes.
Where oil really falls short is sealing exposed end grain. Ash especially loves to suck up water along exposed end grain. The exposed end grain of thwarts, yokes, and seat frames is usually not accessible to reoiling without removing the components. And the end grain of inwales is often covered by on-lay deck plates. The underside of wooden inlay deck plates is also rather difficult to access in a canoe with float tanks. Bright finishes do a much better job of sealing up the end grain where exposed.
But bright finishes are more time consuming to apply and to repair than oil and nothing looks worse than a scratched up bright finish. So there are advantages and disadvantages to both.
I’ve always preferred oil for the aesthetics (look and feel) and over time have switched to hempseed oil because it is non-toxic which is a real pleasure for me.
I’d always assume that varnish is best for outside storage but just wanted to comment that in my experience with indoor storage an oil finish doesn’t require seat and thwart removal to touch up the ends very often, it’s more like every 5-10 years than every year or two. The boat in the pic has gone out around 50-100 times a year since '99 and there isn’t a touch of rot anywhere even ignoring the thwart and seat ends for ten years. I bought a '96 Bell this summer and it was dry and happy on seat and thwart ends after 25 years. Maybe if the boats didn’t live in Midwest garages they’d need more frequent touch-ups. I do oil the exposed parts of the thwarts (and gunwales) more often but that’s more for aesthetics, not durability/rot.
@CraigF Interesting, are you adjusting the angle of the seat by adjusting just the front or back, or raising and lowering the whole seat but keeping it level, or both?
Many paddlers who kneel in a canoe with a traditional wood-framed seat will cant the seat so that the front rail of the seat frame is lower than the rear rail. Kneeling thwarts are nearly always canted in my experience.
When kneeling your feet wind up under the seat frame or between the thwart and the hull bottom so the seat or thwart must be mounted high enough off the hull bottom to allow easy extraction of the feet in the event of a capsize. That height will depend on foot size and the type of footwear the paddler uses.
If the rear rail of the seat is mounted to the underside of the inwales the front rail can be dropped by interposing a short spacer between the inwale and the seat frame. If seat hangers are used, the front of the hanger or the front dowel is simply made longer than the rear.
The degree of cant relative to the horizontal will vary from paddler to paddler and is largely a matter of personal preference, although generally speaking the higher the seat is mounted above the hull bottom, the greater the cant angle. Most often the angle of cant will vary from something like 4 degrees to 12 degrees or so.
Thanks, @anon64780766. I was more curious about the adjustments being made on the go by @CraigF - what aspects change from day to day that need ameliorating. But, this is useful background on kneeling thwarts.
I have never tried to have the facility to adjust the height of a seat or the angle of cant but there are times when it might be nice. The most common is a boat that is paddled in both sitting and kneeling postures.
Sitting most people want the seat level or slightly canted and mounted lower for stability. Kneeling requires a higher seat for foot clearance and generally more cant is desirable.
There have been times when I would have liked to adjust height and angle of a seat set up for kneeling somewhat. In summer using light shoes less clearance is needed than in winter when one might be wearing more substantial footwear for example.
Wenonah installs a metal bracket seat hanger in some of their boats with slots that allow the seat to be raised and canted to different degrees. I never liked it because it tended to rattle a lot during transport. One way to be able to adjust seat height and angle to a degree would be to use longer than needed machine screws and wingnuts to hang the seat and then place nylon spacers of different thicknesses between the seat hanger and the front rail, or both rails of the seat frame to drop it and/or increase the angle of cant.
I usually paddle a tandem solo sitting backwards in the bow seat. I could see wanting to cant the seat for comfort, and wingnuts would add the ability to level the seat again for tandem paddling, but the bolt holes in the seat would have to be bigger to accommodate a cant…the greater the cant, the bigger the holes…might be worth a try though. Or I might think about adding a kneeling thwart immediately behind the bow seat some day. In the meantime, I’ve found adding a padded seat gets me comfort in a variety of positions.
The bolt holes don’t need to be much bigger to accommodate modest degrees of cant. I have found that if the holes are drilled with a jobber bit two sizes larger than the minimum necessary for a #10 machine screw, you can drill the holes in the seat rails perpendicular to the tops of the rails and they will still be large enough for an angle of cant up to 9 - 10 degrees or so.
But for most tandems that are occasionally paddled solo I think a kneeling thwart is a more reasonable option.
Good to know, thanks!
I use a 4.5 inch wide caned seat to lean my hams on when I low kneel. It is used to take pressure off of my knees, even more so than the mini-cell pad under them does.
I try to set it up to be most effective, but you never know until a boat is on the water. There is also the occasional need to change things two hours later.
As far as the bolt configuration; I have a couple of pieces of 5/16 stainless rod with 3/16 holes drilled through the barrel side. I insert these into the wood and rune the bolt through them. That spreads the tension along the 1 inch width of it. I don’t have a clue where I got them or what they came out of, they were in that stack of boat stuff I knew I would find a use for the day after I tossed it. Got lucky on that one.
Thanks for the scoop!