Thursday, January 23, 2014

Wood and Canvas Canoe Restoration - started


Finally got the shop organized enough to get the canoe moved in.  Some internet sleuthing reveals that it is a B.N. Morris canoe.  Helps to know what it is since that narrows down searches for particulars.
Did some measuring too.  Beam is 32 inches at the gunwales.  Length is 17 feet. 
There it is, the B.N. Morris without a skin, sitting on top of the Vibe in front of the shop.
The white cedar sheathing has some gaps that need to be filled.
There it is in the shop ready for the next step.
The ends of the canoe are decked over.  Doesn't look like much, but takes up the first 32 inches of either end of the boat.
And here, inside the hull, assorted parts that were stripped off the hull.  Among other things, here are outwales, gunwale caps, stem pieces and plastic bags filled with bronze nails.  Some sanding and varnish will make this stuff look like new.

2 comments:

Canoe Historian said...

Not to rain on your parade, but this isn't a B.N. Morris. It's almost certainly from one of the builders along the Charles River near Boston, and probably from the teens to the 1940s timeframe. Morris canoes were nice, but so were these Boston-area builders. Unfortunately it's tough to pin down which of the Charles River builders without a builder's tag. Features of your canoe prove it's not a Morris and strongly indicate that it is a Boston-area canoe. Interestingly, one of those Boston-area builders was working in the Pacific Northwest for a time, so...

Wolfgang Brinck said...

thanks for the rain on the BN Morris parade. Yes, this canoe did not come with a builder's tag. So to anonymity it shall return.