My heavens! I live in Arizona - the desert oven - and after watching this incredible restoration with your attention to its heritage and consummate craftsmanship, I want a wooden canoe. Bravo master restorer. Lydia Grace is a thing of beauty anyone with any sense in need of a canoe would be proud to paddle her into adventure. A true pleasure to have watched your love of craft and skills in this rebirth.
I enjoyed seeing the juxtaposition of new/old tools, new/old techniques and your statements that sometimes the old methods are just better. I have been an aficionado of Adirondack guide boats since a boy and your video soothes my soul. thanks!
Beautiful work Jim, and thanks for showing us so much detail. Camping in the Adirondacks one time, I got talking with a guy with a pretty canvas canoe he'd restored. Told me the first one he restored he put out by the side of the road to sell, and the best offer he got was $300. Put it on the internet (which was new at the time), sold it for $1500 to a guy in Colorado building a big McMansion in the mountains. He was going to hang it in the rafters of his great room - it would never see water again!
It is so inspiring to see this canoe being saved. Pretty soon work like that will be long forgotten in favor of moulded carbon fiber, fiberglass or whatever mass producing companies come up with in order to save time and money. Back in the early eighties I was thumbing through an issue of Canoe magazine (I think that was the name) and came across an add for canoe plans. At the time I had a girlfriend with similar outdoor interests and figured to impress her by building my own canoe. Well I did build that 18’ stripper canoe and it turned out great . It ended up following me through many moves but eventually developed some areas of rot . In my last move I had had enough of the thing and cut it up with a chainsaw . Now you have restored that old girl and made me feel like a dummy for what I did. Thanks for the video!
Thank you everyone for your kind comments. I have often wondered what Old Man Rushton would have to say about what I did. I expect he would laugh at all the effort I put into bringing the old girl back and suggest it would have been less work to make a new one - and he might have been right! But on the other hand I gave a new lease on life to a grand old canoe that really did deserve it. It has been often said that there is magic in paddling a canoe but paddling an old wood/canvas canoe is total magic. If anyone is looking at restoring their own canoe the WCHA has a wealth of information and very helpful members who always chime in with advice. Paddles Up!!
This is stunning. The world of throwaway items should be returned to a world where we restore the treasures of the past as much as possible. You have done an incredible job.
It looks fantastic and I appreciated you sharing your knowledge. It was great to see that you rescued this canoe in a nick of time and brought it back to better than original condition.
Spent 6 months last spring restoring my dad's old cedar strip canoe . It was over 100 years old. Enjoyed your workmanship, your info, your final result, and my finished product. Can't use it in salt water tho..
A man from New York state told me many years ago where to get powder for sealer. Don't remember name, thanks if it was you. Still fixing canoes in Nova Scotia. Keep up good work.
