Thursday, February 25, 2010

The dark red boat in the center bay is a very special boat.  It is a very early Old Town.  Its serial number is #2781. The surviving Old Town records only start at #3000.  the boat is a  H. W. model built around 1904 when the company was named the "Indian Old Town Canoe Company".  Its' owner is Benson gray whose family started and owned Old Town Canoe for several generations.  Our job in the shop is to keep it as much as possible in its original condition but correct some woodworking problems and repaint the hull.  The rail fastenings have come lose and we'll tighten or add a slightly larger fastening to help hold them together.  It had leaked around the stem bands and a previous owner (not Benson) had tried patching the stems with some kind of mix of pine tar and/or roofing cement so we have a bit of mess to clean up around the stems!

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