A relative, thinking in ignorance that it was too good a deal to pass up, came home with this beast of a canoe. It is 18’ long and flat-bottomed with a keel. Fiberglass hull and some kind of plastic gunnels and decks. It has a “Lincoln” decal on each side in the middle and appears to be about 30 years old. HIN starts with LCN and ends with 79a.
So I take a look at it and here’s the bad news…the gunnels are tearing loose all over, the seats and thwarts are shot, and the flotation tanks have been breached. Someone tried to do numerous shoddy repairs, such as cobbed-up seat hangars, sheet metal screws in the gunnels that have also pulled through the glass, and silicone sealer pasted into the stems where they were mashed up bit in the usual places. Otherwise, the hull seems fairly rigid and intact (although quite ugly).
I felt sorry for the guy, so I agreed to attempt repairs to make the boat usable (dumb mistake). I can do the seats and thwarts…easy. The gunnels will be something new to me. I’m considering making new ones (and decks) out of wood, or maybe just re-attaching the old ones (maybe some epoxy?). I thought I’d attack the silicone first, but it really doesn’t want to come off.
Ideas? Maybe leave the silicone? Wait 'til he’s forgotten it and ship it to the dump?
Go steal a Wenonah somewhere, call
your friend, and tell him the boat is ready.
Seriously, though, that’s a pickle, because you don’t want to put a lot of money and time into refurbishing a sow’s ear.
Like an uncle of mine used to say…
“You can’t shine sh*t”…
Some projects are just not worth it… your call…
Good luck
Re silicone
There is product that dissolves/eats silicone - last time I was interested in it, found it in Ace Hardware. Very likely, other stores carry it as well. Of course, don’t have the brand name. It was pretty harmless product - basically, for home use.
Thanks, Suriam
Good to know there is such a thing. I’ll start looking. I do have a supply of WS epoxy sitting around and some FG cloth and mat, so fixing those ends properly wouldn’t be a big deal with the silicone removed.