Bastien Bros Huron 15

[Mihun09]

Christy has been prodding me to get back out into the shop and working again and I have been dawdling. The intensity of the Peterborough work needing to be done was putting me off, so I decided to start with an easy one. I moved the Pete out to the boat house and brought in the Huron we bought from Martin2007.

I had it stripped bare in about 90 minutes so now can begin the rebuild. I am taking a page from Robin's playbook and I am not going to strip the varnish, just give it a scratch and new varnish. The boat only needs the ends done, two ribs and a bit of planking although I may strip all the planks that have the Fibreglas on them to make that easier, or just sand it as smooth as possible. Many tacks need to be re-clinched but that should be easy enough as well. Could have this in canvas by the end of November and then on to the Y-stern.



Look how thick the decks are, and they are heavy too, I'll replace them with something lighter and thinner.

 

[Guest]

Dang, is it just me, or does that canoe have a LOT of ribs?

I like the Y-stern bit. Are you thinking small motor?

 

[Mihun09]

Mike, there are 43 ribs in this 15 footer, pretty much standard. Thankfully I have only the cant ribs and maybe a couple others to do rib tips on.

The Y-stern is a bit of an anomaly. It was built by the PO for moose hunting in Algonquin park and is skinnier than most at 36". The 18 foot Kildonan Y-stern we had was 48" wide which would be more typical I believe. Christy does plan to hang a small motor on it, she has an air cooled 2 hp she is working on presently but it may be too small for that boat.

So, got done what I had hoped to today. Inwale and stem tip rot removed and new pieces epoxied in place. Tomorrow I can sand the rails, cut stock for the cant ribs and get them in place and hopefully I will have a piece of wood out in the boat house to start on the new decks. They may need to be smaller considering the originals were 6 3/8" wide and most of our wood is 5 1/2", but I shall see, I know we have some cherry and mahogany out there, will check later and confer with the woman.

 

[Mihun09]

Another day of adventures. The inwale and stem additions glued up real nice so today I began with sanding the inwales. I will need to get the new spruce to match the old spruce.

Upon closer inspection it was noted that most of the ribs are loose, so, that meant removing all the sheer planking to expose the nails so they can be removed and redone. I found about half the ribs having the nails backing out of the inwales, tacks missing or just pulling out themselves. Also, the majority of the ribs are split where the nails went into the wood, either when it was built or over time as the wood dried out. The long splits I can fix, the smaller ones at the tips of all the ribs likely won't seal up, but I can reinforce them with some clear epoxy.

When we nail ribs we always drill for ease and to prevent further splitting. The existing nails were mostly steel, we will use silicon bronze ring nails.

This won't be the prettiest boat but it will be functional again. One thing is certain, it really, Really needed the work getting done, one more season on roof racks it likely would have shaken itself apart.



The split in the inwale is from the bolts for the center thwart being over tightened. I can fix this with epoxy and heat. You can see how the rib nails have backed themselves out. There are too many ribs that look like this.

 

[memaquay]

Looks like a lot of work. Hw much do you think it will weigh when you get done?

 

[Mihun09]

I'm hoping it will be under 60 pounds, should be for a fifteen footer, but for whatever reason the planking is thicker than the standard 5/32. Perhaps it was one of the last boats they built and they did not put much effort into finishing the planks, we shall likely never know. Will just have to lighten it up in other places.

 

[memaquay]

What are your plans for it?

 

[Mihun09]

Keep it, take the lines off, and hopefully Christy will use it as her solo boat. Then next year we will each bring solo's for the float down the Kap.

 

[Mihun09]

Moving on...

Yesterday was re-nailing all the ribs. A time consuming affair as the original nails needed to be removed first.

Then, I repaired the broken cant ribs and had them epoxied to cure overnight.

Today was trimming the cant ribs, finishing the rib nailing and adjusting the inwales to equal lengths, then, build new decks from Mahogany. They are in temporarily and tomorrow I may give it a good sanding then varnish all the bits I won't be able to get at once the sheer planking is back on.

The boat has a twist in it which made fitting the decks just a littler bit more difficult.

I have 4 days next weekend to continue working on it. The inwales and decks will likely be stained dark as the hull colour will most likely be a darker yellow.

 

[Mihun09]

So, back in September when we pulled the canvas off we noticed how ugly the bottom of the stems were, the planking did not come together nicely as it should. At the time I didn't put much thought into it but on Friday morning I figured out the why. The cant ribs at both ends were longer than the stem. The cant ribs are the ones that either go under or alongside the stems. In this case, they were all past the stems, thus creating the issue of a gap and the planking not coming together neatly. So, the obvious thing to do was expose the cant rib ends and reshape them to fit the stems properly. I did that Fri/Sat using a Dremel with a 1/4" drum sander. It worked out pretty good too. One oddity was when I took the planking off the one side, I found a multitude of nails in one rib. The ribs are 1 3/4" wide and it had 7 nails in it.

The more I look at this boat, the more I think it was the first one they ever built with how poorly constructed it was, or perhaps the last. It has a mix of brass and steel tacks, the stems are poorly shaped, cant ribs incorrect, planking thicker than normal. So many things which are much worse than I have normally seen on Bastien Bros canoes.

I can fix whatever they throw at me!

After replacing the planking on the ends, I did the behind the rib repairs on the 3 cracked ribs, so, that should be all the major work done. Now we only need to re-clinch ALL the tacks and replace the broken ones. Might still get it into canvas by the end of the month.

 

[Alan Gage]

My goodness these rehabs look like a lot of work but you seem to make good time. I think you have more patience for the fiddly bits than I do. Nice work.

Alan

 

[Mihun09]

Alan, I think much of what you do would be too fiddly for me. Messing with layers of cloth or taking the time to vacuum bag gunwales and such. I'll stick to the old stuff, you are best at the new.

Pam Wedd suggested I try my hand at building a new w/c canoe. That has always been in the back of my mind, it would give me a bit of a legacy. We intend to pull the lines off this boat, likely start by making a stripper then advance to taking the time to building a proper mould for a new canoe. Could take a couple of years to pull that together though. Major undertaking to build a w/c canoe mould.

 

[Mihun09]

Been awhile but work progressed slowly as life tends to get in the way even for me.

Way back at the beginning of October I had noticed the boat had straight sides, almost flared, which is not a trait of Huron's. The issue solved itself as over the 2 months it sat on the cradles with no interior support, it pulled itself back in and now has the tumblehome it should have. The center thwart was almost 2 inches too long and was trimmed down to fit the new svelte shape, as was the seat. The actual original thwart was replaced with the yoke you see, which we took out of a previous restoration. Turns out it is 1 3/8" thick red cedar and is super light, which is why I notched it to fit between the inwales a bit. Trying to keep the boat lighter we also did not put the stern seat back in since it will be Christy's solo.

We only had to replace two small pieces of planking in the bottom and a couple spots at the ends on the sheer. We did however re-clinch and added or replaced about 300 tacks. The finish is two coats of Epifanes over the scuffed original varnish which allowed us to keep the patina.

Due to the inclement weather we are going to wait until late Winter/early Spring to canvas. We always use end cut preservative sprayed on the canvas after stretching for mildew control. Being in the death grip of Winter now, we have to wait. I tried a sample of the clear preservative out in the cold one night, -25C, and although it did not freeze, it did turn to a molasses state so we cannot apply it until it warms a touch.

By the time Spring does roll around we should have 3 boats ready for canvas anyway so will do them at the same time. We are also going to experiment with canvas filler recipes in the meantime.

 

[Iskweo]

We did not get fancy with this one. The aim was to preserve as much of the original wood and patina as we could. To that end, we did behind the rib repairs instead of replacing them, and didnt take the old varnish right off. The inwales were a bit nasty too with all the capstrip nail holes but this will be a bush basher so that is not so important to me. Lots of tips are chummy too but again, they will do.

No fancy seat, although I would like one of Jim Dodd's nice curved ones some day. The yoke is kind of beefy. You could use it for a wheel chock on a DC-3. This is a Huron. You paddle them. They are nice nice hulls but not well put together. We strenthened the construction and lightened what we could, it is just over 40 lbs as is. Canvas will likely put me @ 60lbs? No matter.

I have a pretty ambitious schedule for the winter months. We shall see how many get done.

Christy

 

[Mihun09]

So Martin, I sure hope you are following along as we rebuild your old canoe.

It is ready for canvas, got the hull sanded and varnished and I put my moniker on it as well. Hopefully in a couple hours before dark we can put it out in the boathouse and bring in the Y-stern. We have a blizzard coming for tomorrow and Monday so it would be best to swap boats today.



It has an awesome hull shape which likely doesn't show well in the photo.

 

[Odyssey]

This Bastien is looking so cool. I love the time capsule idea Karin; leaving your mark on history.

 

[frozentripper]

Beautiful interior and rawhide lacing... I really like the old traditional look. Thinking of buying some rawhide and making chairs with the same kind of appearance.

 

[martin2007]

Karin, I'm happy to see my old favourite getting the makeover she deserves, and by someone as passionate about canoes as you are. Looks like you're doing great work. She was mine from 1995 to 2016. I paddled her many K's on the Sharon Creek reservoir, Fanshawe Lake, Boat Lake in the Bruce, Killarney PP, Algonquin PP, and the French River. I don't know who paddled her or where she'd been before I bought her. Thanks for sharing the photos of the restoration. A little heartbreak here, but mostly I'm really happy to see her being brought back to health.

 

[Iskweo]

Yes it is coming along nicely. She can sit until spring now waiting for canvas and then will be my personal ride. We kept it as original as possible to retain that lived in look. It is going to see a lot more miles of water yet.

Christy

 

[Mihun09]

Starting to canvas today. We used to string the canvas between a couple of trees in the backyard then we built this rig in the shop. Eyebolt through the back wall to the outside, the other end is a 4x4 post backed up with a 2x4, the floor end is a post holder bolted to the concrete, the upper a simple U shaped block of wood screwed to the ceiling. The post is removable in this way so we can use both front doors. The boat winch was a rescue and it already had the steel cable on it. Works like a charm. We don't put 800 pounds of rock in the hull like Robin does, just a 50 pound toolbox does it for us. Also, due to using a lighter canvas we opted to hand pull for stapling rather than using the canvas pliers. After it gets soaked in mildewcide it will shrink up further and be plenty tight.

Christy is out pulling wrinkles out before we wrap the ends. It is even warm enough today to spray on the mildewcide if we choose to do that. Canvas for this one is one grade lighter than our usual No10 cotton duck. It will also get the epoxy/baby powder filler.