I have a Great Canadian canoe that has damage where the seats were mounted. It looks like they originally fiberglassed small wooden strips directly to the inside of the canoe for the seat to sit on. Over time the wood rotted and the fiberglass had no support. I don’t have much experience with fiberglass but I would appreciate any recommendations on how to repair this. Thanks!
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Great Canadian canoe repair
- Thread starter Grizzly15
- Start date
I would remove the glass that held the rotted wood.
Hang seats from the gunnel, if at all possible ! If not ? pop rivet some thick aluminum , to the gunnels, wide enough to fasten to the seat.
It would be ideal, if you could find some Aluminum angle.
After removing that hump.
Sand at least 2" around the area.
Lay the hull on one side. Saturate a couple of layers of cloth, with mixed epoxy, and lay in over the area to be patched.
Let cure and sand.
Do the same thing to the other side.
Good luck !
Jim
Hang seats from the gunnel, if at all possible ! If not ? pop rivet some thick aluminum , to the gunnels, wide enough to fasten to the seat.
It would be ideal, if you could find some Aluminum angle.
After removing that hump.
Sand at least 2" around the area.
Lay the hull on one side. Saturate a couple of layers of cloth, with mixed epoxy, and lay in over the area to be patched.
Let cure and sand.
Do the same thing to the other side.
Good luck !
Jim
Hi Grizzly! I also have a Great Canadian, and have put a lot of time and effort into repairs. The hull price was cheap, and so it sort of made sense to put in the effort. Plus, it was an opportunity to learn a new process with my son.
Anyway, do a very thorough check of the hull for soft spots and crackling noise. The best way to do this is with a hand scrubbing inside and out. I knew I had one problem area when I bought it, but it turned into six repair spots as I went.
I had the same trouble with the seat mounts. I just put it back the same way; piece of wood glued to the hull and glass over top. Best practice? Not hardly. But it was done in conjunction with the other repairs, so it was the easiest at the time.
My experience with my specific canoe is that the overall hull is deteriorating and new damage crops up every year. This year, the keel is suddenly completely rotten in two places. You might consider this as you undertake repairs. If you decide to repair, fiberglass is easy to work with as long as you don't get the quick dry epoxies. Ten minutes sounds like a long time until you are trying to wet out three layers in a warm garage. We used big vinyl maple leaves to cover the patches.
Overall, I love the boat but ONLY because it got me and my son into the hobby. If I had to do it over again, I would just as soon start with a 3-layer poly boat and go from there.
Anyway, do a very thorough check of the hull for soft spots and crackling noise. The best way to do this is with a hand scrubbing inside and out. I knew I had one problem area when I bought it, but it turned into six repair spots as I went.
I had the same trouble with the seat mounts. I just put it back the same way; piece of wood glued to the hull and glass over top. Best practice? Not hardly. But it was done in conjunction with the other repairs, so it was the easiest at the time.
My experience with my specific canoe is that the overall hull is deteriorating and new damage crops up every year. This year, the keel is suddenly completely rotten in two places. You might consider this as you undertake repairs. If you decide to repair, fiberglass is easy to work with as long as you don't get the quick dry epoxies. Ten minutes sounds like a long time until you are trying to wet out three layers in a warm garage. We used big vinyl maple leaves to cover the patches.
Overall, I love the boat but ONLY because it got me and my son into the hobby. If I had to do it over again, I would just as soon start with a 3-layer poly boat and go from there.
Thank you for the responses that definitely is good information. It seems like repairing it is definitely feasible. The question I have now is whether or not I want to go in depth if maybe a different canoe would be a better project. I have owned this and had used it extensively for years and haven’t started fixing it for that reason. Maybe I could use some aluminum seat hangers to make it functional again until I decide if I want to dig into this one or keep looking
@Tryin' the best part about your repair work is the time with your son, and the skills he learned.
@Grizzly15 good luck! I don’t know where the breaking point is between repair and scrap, but we chose to get rid of a small and pretty light FG Mohawk canoe that my MIL had stored in the sun for decades. It had numerous leaks and the boat made crunchy sounds when you got in and shifted around. I think it was just completely done.
@Grizzly15 good luck! I don’t know where the breaking point is between repair and scrap, but we chose to get rid of a small and pretty light FG Mohawk canoe that my MIL had stored in the sun for decades. It had numerous leaks and the boat made crunchy sounds when you got in and shifted around. I think it was just completely done.
Welcome to site membership, Grizzly15! Feel free to ask questions about your repair or any other canoe matter and to post messages, photos and videos in our many canoe-related forums. We look forward to your participation in our community.
I am not an experienced repairer, but many here are, so good luck with your decision about repair vs. a different canoe. All these decisional processes are types of "canoe trips", so keep us informed about your journey. It informs and entertains not only the current membership, but also future members who will read your threads and posts.
Easiest solution is to remove all of the loose and nonfunctional fiberglass and suspend your seats using aluminum seat hangers like those available from Ed's Canoe shown below. Your canoe has no inwales from which to suspend seats from machine screws but hangers of this type are easy to install. The straight side of the hanger slides up between the hull and the inside gunwale skirt and is secured by drilling a hole and running a pop rivet or stainless machine screw through the hole in the hanger, skirt and hull. You sometimes need to drill out a couple of existing pop rivets to allow enough space for the hanger and then replace them and you may need to shorten the hangers with a hack saw to place your seats at the correct height.
As for the interior areas missing the inner layer of material (which looks like chopped strand 'glass and resin) where the underlying fiberglass roving is exposed, you have a couple of options. The boat is probably made with polyester resin and you could use either polyester resin or epoxy for repairs. Best option in terms of strength is to cover the areas with fiberglass patches as Jim Dodd recommends. But if you don't want to mess with that you could simply apply enough resin to cover the areas and fill the voids after removing any loose or detached material. If you don't have epoxy or polyester resin on hand Bondo will work for this purpose.
seat hangers
As for the interior areas missing the inner layer of material (which looks like chopped strand 'glass and resin) where the underlying fiberglass roving is exposed, you have a couple of options. The boat is probably made with polyester resin and you could use either polyester resin or epoxy for repairs. Best option in terms of strength is to cover the areas with fiberglass patches as Jim Dodd recommends. But if you don't want to mess with that you could simply apply enough resin to cover the areas and fill the voids after removing any loose or detached material. If you don't have epoxy or polyester resin on hand Bondo will work for this purpose.
seat hangers
I've owned a "basket case" Great Canadian 15' since 2016 and it's been... great! My then 16 year old son wanted to take me to a big box store before Fathers Day/Birthday to surprise me with a canoe, and I didn't want him to spend that kind of $. At the curb a block away I'd noticed this holed-in-two-places Great Canadian that had obviously spent some time sunk: $50 including a bundle of barely serviceable wood paddles. Kid bought me that instead plus a $20 auto body fiberglass kit, worked great for the holes and to shore up the seat supports, which admittedly weren't rotted like yours. A piece of lath for the missing thwart, and we were on the lake (but not painted) that afternoon, plus I'd shown the kid how to work with fiberglass. A week later I replaced the lath with a yoke thwart from online. Seven years later all the repairs have held up fine (even stored outdoors), though the rattle-can job I did is starting to flake - this year I plan on stripping it down and using a catalyzed "real" auto body paint, and hopefully the online source of replacement stickers gets back to me! Even new, was it the best canoe out there? No. Who cares. Great memories.
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