Canoeguy's Blog

by Mike Elliott, Kettle River Canoes
email: artisan@canoeshop.ca

Water tends to collect in the ends of wood-canvas canoes when they are used on a regular basis. This moist environment creates perfect growing conditions for the fungi that cause wood rot.  I have described the process of rebuilding the rotted ends of a wood-canvas canoe in my book  ̶ This Old Canoe.  However, when the canoe is built with a stylish upward sweep in the sheer-line at both ends, the repair job is much more involved.  For this discussion, I rebuilt the rotted end of a 1967 Old Town OTCA sailing canoe with sponsons.

Often, the damage is not apparent until the end is taken apart. Only then can you see the rotted inwale-ends and stem-top.

In this canoe, the bow deck was also rotted in the end. There are many ways to approach this repair.  Sometimes, all that is required is the application of wood-hardener and two-part epoxy putty.  In other cases, a new tip of solid wood can be spliced into the original deck with a scarf joint.  However, the damage is most often so severe that an entirely new deck has to be made.  In many canoes with highly-curved ends, the solid wood decks (almost an inch thick) are bent to follow the curve in the sheer-line.

I have seen some people make a new deck by carving the curve into a piece of 8/4 (2″ or 5 cm thick) hardwood. Others laminate several thin slices of hardwood together on a form to create the curved deck.  In this example, I employed the same methodology used by the original builders  ̶  namely stem-bending the curve using a press.  The first step is to cut a new deck from a piece of 4/4 (1″ or 25 mm thick) hardwood (in this case I used white oak).

The set-up is comprised of the new deck steam-bent between two solid-wood bending forms. They are both fashioned from a number (in this case, four) of 2×8 pieces of spruce lumber sandwiched together into a 6×8 block (held together with 2½” deck screws).  The bottom block has the concave shape of the deck-bend cut into its top surface while the top block has the convex shape cut its bottom.

The curve required to achieve the correct bent in the replica deck is greater than the actual curve. This is due to the fact that a solid piece of wood will spring-back a little once the tension is removed in the press.  To save you the trial-and-error process involved in getting the proper curve, I present a diagram that will allow you to get it right the first time.

Pressure for bending the deck is generated with an automotive scissor-jack forcing the bending forms together in the middle of a press-frame constructed from 2×6 lumber. In this case, the inside dimensions of the press are 26½” (67.3 cm) high by 31″ (79.7 cm) wide.

The new deck is left in the press for a week to dry completely. When removed, the new deck has exactly the same bend as the original.  Once the deck is ready, new inwale-ends have to be spliced into the original inwales.  This will be discussed in part 2 of this blog.

The entire restoration process (including stem-top, inwale-end and deck repairs) is described in my book – This Old Canoe: How To Restore Your Wood Canvas Canoe.
If you live in Canada, CLICK HERE to buy the book.
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