I finished stripping the bottom a few weeks ago, which uncovered some “interesting” prior repairs, some of which need to be redone. The hole is quite obvious, and now that the outer keel and outer stem are gone, the rot to stem and inner keel are really obvious. I managed to carefully pry out the…

Here’s the stripper hard at work. I really dislike using chemicals but this stuff is amazing. Put it in, wait 15 minutes, and 49 years if paint scrapes neatly off (with a bit if muscle). Scraping with a sprained wrist really sucks though.

After taking the remaining bits of metal off that someone had used to repair the bow, I found a mess. And a hole. Both were expected. The inner and outer stem, as well as the keel are all rotten and need to be replaced. This is turning into a rather large project.

I recently came into ownership of a 1965 Richardson Avalon 14′ cedarstrip boat. The history of the manufacturer is somewhat cloudy, but it appears in 1962 the former General Manager of Peterborough Canoe Company, the company that built most of the cedar strip runabouts, bought Lakefield Boat Co and renamed it to Richardson Aquacraft, also Rilco…