Hi all,
A couple months ago I posted some pics and questions of my Old Town Tripper that I was looking to repair/refurbish. Some people were curious for an update, and I had some more questions / discussion ideas, so I figured I'd post again. Plus, it seemed to elicit some fun discussion around a boat that, over the last month of some research, I have learned has a rich history in the paddling community and is held dear in a lot of people's memories. My hope is to return this boat to at least some portion of its former glory, and take it on many trips in its future.
So far, all I have done is cut away the broken bits of vinyl or old fiber glass repair swatches, exposing more foam on the hull. I cleaned out some sand and grit from these holes, and then spent a few days filling them with west system g-flex epoxy mix, layering it with cross hatched 6oz fiber glass swatches. After a couple layers of epoxy, I sanded it down to be flush with the rest of the boat. I had to do this in a few spots, with one hole being the most difficult as I had around a 2in by 5in exposure of foam. But even that large hole is flush now. None of these holes made it past the foam core, and the inside of the hull still has no leaks. Attached are some pictures, apologies for their poor quality.
Moving forward, I am thinking of repainting. All I was going to do was give the whole boat a nice sand with relatively low-grit sand-paper (maybe 300ish) and then use Rustoleum spray paint to give it a nice color. I'll be sure to sand this with proper ventilation and a mask, the shavings from this vinyl is nasty stuff.
For the inside, I'm thinking of replacing the seats with some ash drop-down webbed ones, as well as removing the thwart behind the bow seat so as to make the boat set up for solo paddling. The gunnels, though worn, are generally alright, along with the decks. I will also replace the hardware for the yoke and other thwart, as you can see some of it is pretty rusted.
The bow Kevlar skid-plate is quite worn down, and will probably need replacement at some point, but I'm going to ignore it for now (plus I'm planning mostly solo trips, in which the intact stern skid plate will be facing forward). As a very temporary solution, I slathered some extra epoxy over the cracks in the strip plate, just to keep more from chipping away. I forgot to take pictures of these after the repairs, but they honestly don't look much different than before (below is the old picture of them for reference, the plate is largely chipped away from years of camp use and rapids no doubt).
Any suggestions for refurbishment, or just general comments I'd love to hear. For context, I have paddled these types of canoes, along with some wood canvas ones, for many years, but I've never gotten into repair or refurbishment until this fall, so I'm learning on the fly here with the Internet's help!
PS: Here's my old post: https://www.canoetripping.net/threads/old-town-tripper-repair.130355/
A couple months ago I posted some pics and questions of my Old Town Tripper that I was looking to repair/refurbish. Some people were curious for an update, and I had some more questions / discussion ideas, so I figured I'd post again. Plus, it seemed to elicit some fun discussion around a boat that, over the last month of some research, I have learned has a rich history in the paddling community and is held dear in a lot of people's memories. My hope is to return this boat to at least some portion of its former glory, and take it on many trips in its future.
So far, all I have done is cut away the broken bits of vinyl or old fiber glass repair swatches, exposing more foam on the hull. I cleaned out some sand and grit from these holes, and then spent a few days filling them with west system g-flex epoxy mix, layering it with cross hatched 6oz fiber glass swatches. After a couple layers of epoxy, I sanded it down to be flush with the rest of the boat. I had to do this in a few spots, with one hole being the most difficult as I had around a 2in by 5in exposure of foam. But even that large hole is flush now. None of these holes made it past the foam core, and the inside of the hull still has no leaks. Attached are some pictures, apologies for their poor quality.
Moving forward, I am thinking of repainting. All I was going to do was give the whole boat a nice sand with relatively low-grit sand-paper (maybe 300ish) and then use Rustoleum spray paint to give it a nice color. I'll be sure to sand this with proper ventilation and a mask, the shavings from this vinyl is nasty stuff.
For the inside, I'm thinking of replacing the seats with some ash drop-down webbed ones, as well as removing the thwart behind the bow seat so as to make the boat set up for solo paddling. The gunnels, though worn, are generally alright, along with the decks. I will also replace the hardware for the yoke and other thwart, as you can see some of it is pretty rusted.
The bow Kevlar skid-plate is quite worn down, and will probably need replacement at some point, but I'm going to ignore it for now (plus I'm planning mostly solo trips, in which the intact stern skid plate will be facing forward). As a very temporary solution, I slathered some extra epoxy over the cracks in the strip plate, just to keep more from chipping away. I forgot to take pictures of these after the repairs, but they honestly don't look much different than before (below is the old picture of them for reference, the plate is largely chipped away from years of camp use and rapids no doubt).
Any suggestions for refurbishment, or just general comments I'd love to hear. For context, I have paddled these types of canoes, along with some wood canvas ones, for many years, but I've never gotten into repair or refurbishment until this fall, so I'm learning on the fly here with the Internet's help!
PS: Here's my old post: https://www.canoetripping.net/threads/old-town-tripper-repair.130355/
