Mahogany Strip Canoe Restoration

I have a 15' 6" hand built mahogany strip solo canoe that my father made with a friend 23 years ago. His friend was building radio towers in Honduras and his company had to clear many virgin mahogany trees. They transported as much of the wood as possible back into the states when the finished the tower job. One of the projects the wood was used for was the canoe. It's beautiful wood, but the craft has seen better days and desperately needs repair. I have offered to take this on as a project, and hope to eventually build a boat from scratch myself.

I am looking for advice on how to properly restore the boat. The biggest problem is several cracks in the side of the boat. Some of the cracks go through and can be seen from the inside of the boat. If it weren't for the cracks, I'm sure the boat could just be sanded and have new coats of marine grade varnish applied, but unfortunately it's not that easy. There is also some cracking at the tail end of the boat at the very tip.

What is the best way to fix the cracks on the side, and to have the boat not look like it was repaired - I don't want to see a patch? It's important to me to do the best restoration possible on this beautiful and one of a kind boat. Pictures are below.

 

You have a difficult task ahead of you. The sheathing should come off the boat, if you expect it to have the beautiful clear finish it once had.

If you can live with a painted finish, you could just repair the areas that need repair, fill damage, dings and divots and paint her up.

Since the lower portions of the bow are now fairly heavily filled, painting (after repairs) may be you best choice.

 

I will definitely not paint the boat. It is worth the time and effort to me to do what it takes to keep the the clear finish.

When you say sheathing should come off, you mean I will need to remove all of the fiberglass, right? Is sanding the correct/best method to do this?

 

gday mahogany-merlin
thats a beautiful looking canoe. if it was a piece of furniture i'd sand it back and fill the cracks with an epoxy glue (like norstik epoxy glue) mixed with sawdust of the appropriate colour. That could work just as well on the canoe. If you get the colour of the sawdust right you'd never know it was patched. I find it's better to use a lighter timber for the sawdust as it appears darker when mixed with the epoxy.. Then maybe re-glass it.

For the bow you could get a sheath engineered that would cover the existing patches and also protect the area from further damage. I've seen that done before on a cedar canoe a mate used to have, didn't look to bad.

best of luck, look forward to seeing how you go.

 

You can't "fill the cracks with . . ." and move on as suggested with the sheathing in place. Well you can, but it will look terrible with parts of the weave filled, etc. The sheathing has to come off and this is a real task.

The process will damage some areas of the mahogany surface, this can't be avoided, but working carefully, minimized. This level of repair and craftsmanship is best left to well experienced hands, particularly the sheathing removal aspect. It's really easy to make a mess and tear up the mahogany beyond any hope of a clear finish.

Currently you have what appears to be a huge hunk of bow (or stern) missing or damaged, that has been filled with putty and sheathed over. I suspect it's impact damage that was repaired in less then a desirable fashion. This coupled with plank movement, possible fastener and glue line failures in some locations, plus sheathing renewal, means you've got a lot of hard work ahead, most of which have nothing to do with a clear finish.

There's no quick fix, to a clear finish, especially one that's under a damaged sheathing. The sheathing has to be removed and sanding isn't the way I'd recommend for a novice. The first question is how much wood working experience do you have? This is because you'll have to make some interesting repairs first, before you can smooth the hull and resheath it again.