Photos by Polly Saltonstall
Canoe restorer Bob Bassett planes white cedar into thin planks to replace rotton ones. He attaches them with brass clinch nails.
If you call Bob Bassett at the Kimball Pond Boat Barn and he’s not there, you will hear a cheery message on his answering machine: “Wooden boats kept afloat.”
He’s not kidding.
For almost 25 years, Bassett has been saving small wooden boats and wood-and-canvas canoes, many of them his customers’ family heirlooms. Canoe enthusiasts—including members of the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association of which Bassett is regional president—consider him a master at giving new life to worn out boats.
Bassett’s homemade steam box.
“I like old boats with a good history,” he said. “I like to bring boats back from being headed to the landfill.”
During a recent visit, his cluttered shop, down a dirt road in Vienna, Maine, (it’s pronounced Veye-enna) contained several classic canvas canoes in various stages of restoration, including a circa 1905 17-foot Morris, an early E.M. White model that was used at the Oquossoc Anglers Association on Cupsuptic Lake in the Rangeley region, and a circa 1920s canoe of uncertain heritage.
An open-air shed nearby held a half-dozen more small craft, some awaiting new owners, others awaiting restoration, including a very early 13-foot Morris canoe that Bassett says is quite rare, one of only five of its kind.
The canvas on the canoe in the foreground has been replaced and awaits paint. The black and red canoe in back is a vintage E.M. White build once used at the Oquossic Anglers Club.
Located in Veazie, Maine, Charles and Bert Morris built wood-canvas canoes from 1891 until their plant burned in 1919. The Morris brothers; E.M. White, who built wood-canvas canoes in Old Town around the turn of the century; and E.H. Gerrish of Bangor, who worked from the 1880s until the early 1900s, are considered the earliest builders of canvas-covered wood canoes in Maine.
Trim, with a bushy salt-and-pepper beard and gray hair pulled back in a pony tail under his flat cap, the 69-year-old Bassett eagerly explained his process, using the Morris as an example. Upside down on saw horses, the canoe has been stripped of its canvas cover and features a patchwork of bright new white cedar planks nestled among old ones, dark with age.
When a canoe comes into his shop, the first thing Bassett does is remove the canvas and thoroughly clean what’s left. He then documents the extent of the damage, marking wood that needs replacing. First to be fixed are any broken or damaged ribs, then come the stem, thwarts, rails, and finally planks. For those, Bassett mills rough white cedar boards, running them through his planer and then sanding them down to narrow planks as thin as 3/16 of an inch.
Bassett shows where he plans to attach new rails on a vintage Morris 17-footer.
Planks, ribs, and other wooden parts are bent into shape after being steamed in a homemade contraption that includes heating water in an old beer keg set on a propane burner. Tubing for the steam runs up into a 6-foot long, 12-inch square pine box hanging from the ceiling. In one of many ingenious touches in the workshop, the steam box can be raised up out of the way when it’s not in use thanks to a set of wooden braces.
“I make everything myself,” Bassett explained. “My father always fixed everything. That’s where I got it.” The elder Bassett worked as a maintenance machinist for General Electric, he added.
Bassett can make paddles—a drawing on the wall shows a design for one he made as a wedding present for a friend—but he prefers not to. The other thing he doesn’t do is caning for seats. That work is sent to someone in Jefferson, Maine.
Looking around the shop, it seemed that Bassett does have tools for just about everything. Benches along the walls contain tins of small brass and copper fasteners, sharp clinch nails, and screws of all sizes. Dozens of different sized spring and C clamps cling to ceiling beams and are stacked in drywall buckets. Tacked to the walls or hanging on hooks are posters, paint samples, chisels, hammers, saws, scissors, hand planes, levels, tape measures, and more, along with extraneous items such as a trumpet—Bassett plays once a week with a local old-time jazz group—and a dart board that Bassett says he rarely uses. Mechanical equipment includes table and band saws, and a planer. The shop is heated by a hard-working Jotul stove.
On the clipboard is a copy of 1937 work orders for an Old Town canoe.
A half-dozen clipboards hanging from a central beam contain work orders and job details. Bassett pulls down one to show paperwork, dated 1937, for an Old Town canoe he restored. The Old Town builders’ files have been digitized and owners can contact the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association for copies if they know their boat’s serial number, Bassett said. Up high, shelves hold old canoe parts, including a folding wood chair with cane seating and several sets of varnished planks fastened in a semi-circle that were used as seat backs on vintage Old Towns.
Asked if he ever has trouble finding things, Bassett erupted in laughter. “I can’t wait to tell my wife you asked that,” he said with a grin.
After planking is completed, new canvas is stretched over the hull. Big rollers in a corner hold wide bolts of #10 and #12 white cotton duck. Getting the canvas on the boat entails a complicated process of clamps and a ratchet that cinches the cloth as much as 15 to 20 percent tighter over the hull.
Bassett then applies a mixture of paint, oil, and silica to the stretched canvas, rubbing it to fill in all evidence of the cotton’s weave. He lets that harden for six weeks, before sanding and painting as many as six coats of color, always using Kirby Paints.
This circa 1905 Morris 17-footer required extensive repairs but the boat had sentimental value to its owner as it had belonged to her father.
“George Kirby would sell me paint and then call to see how it was going,” Bassett said. “I’m a loyal guy.” (The Kirby he referred to is father of the current company president, also named George Kirby.)
Painting doesn’t happen until the spring when all the woodworking has been done and there is less risk of sawdust getting in the way.
Raised in a small New Hampshire town on a pond, Bassett has loved boats all his life. He acquired his first one, a 7-foot pram, with money from his 8th birthday. After working as a carpenter for many years, including doing woodwork on fiberglass boats, he moved with his wife, Carol, to Vienna in 2000. There he built his shop almost entirely out of 15,000 feet of pine harvested from his land, and then started looking for boats to repair. A 2003 class at the WoodenBoat School with Maine canoe guru Rollin Thurlow really got him going. Bassett’s copy of The Wood Canvas Canoe, a Complete Guide to its History, Construction, Restoration, and Maintenance, by Thurlow and Jerry Stelmok, is worn and held together with tape, evidence of its long-time use as a key reference.
Bassett usually works on two boats at a time during the winter, and is booked out for work at least a year and a half. Depending on the amount of damage, a typical job takes him upwards of 150 hours. The cost, which can run as high as $5,000 or more, is usually far more than most boats are worth, he said. Rather, most of them have sentimental value to their owners. “They belonged to Dad or Grandpa, or Uncle Dave,” he said.
Asked to describe a favorite project, Bassett didn’t hesitate.
“The next one.”
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Polly Saltonstall is MBH&H’s editor at large.
For More Information
Kimball Pond Boat Barn
Vienna, ME
207-578-0876
www.boatbarn.wcha.org
