Last August I brought a pretty little Blackhawk solo home. Her gunwhales, thwarts, seat - everything wood - were badly weathered, while her fiberglass hull was in great condition. I finally got around to sweetening her up and I love the result.

After much consultation from many of you here, I weighed all the options, stain, natural, tongue oil, spar varnish. I decided to hand sand it all down clean, stain it a walnut color and put three coats of spar urethane on it.

Here are some before, during and after pics. Thanks to all of you for your great advice.

The orignal:

showing the sanding on the right vs the original condition on the left


after applying the stain:


After 3 coats of spar urethane (sanding between each one) here is a close up of the seat and thwart:


And the final product. Ain't she purty?

Purty indeed! Nice work.

Nice job, Jerry!

What did you have to pay or trade for it originally?
Realizing its non of my business if you don't want to share.

quote LindenTree3: "What did you have to pay or trade for it originally?
Realizing its non of my business if you don't want to share."

It was a birthday gift! Best yet. Long story.

Nice boat Jerry. I have the Starship made in '94. What model is this one?

I got mine in 2001 and the gunnels were in such bad shape I had custom ones made to replace them in 2011. I went with 6 coats of spar urethane. :)

Nice work one match. Looks like a Fishhawk 13', I had one for many years. I have the original forms that the plug was made from. Bob Brown who designed the Lady Slipper, Kitty hawk, Fusion, Creek runner designed the Fishhawk / Nighthawk.
A couple of stretched out versions have been stripped up on those forms.

There is no model name on the boat. The serial number, I believe points to mfg date of 1996. It is 14.5 ft long and all indicators say it is a Shadow, but I'm not 100% on that.

Thanks for the kudos!

So, do you have plans to take it to the BW? Or is it not a tripping boat.

That looks great! Next you need to do a bit of customization. What is the canoe equivalent of spinning hubcaps?

Nicely done! Did you have to replace the cane in the seat? I've seen that go long before gunnels and thwarts get that weathered.

At Tom T: I actually took her into Sawbill last summer before this refinish. She performed quite well and I'm leaving for Wabakimi next week. I wanted to have her ready for that trip, but one of the trippers backed out due to a shoulder problem. I was the 5th wheel, but now I'll be in a tandem and will have to look forward to another trip with her.

At ParkerMag: Luckily, the cane seat was actually in decent shape. I just sanded, stained and varnished it too.

Love the walnut stain choice...looks great against the hull! Nice work one match!

Nice work! That's going to be fun to paddle. Did you have a build thread here? Any other hardware fixes or repairs, or was it all woodwork?

quote muddyfeet: "Nice work! That's going to be fun to paddle. Did you have a build thread here? Any other hardware fixes or repairs, or was it all woodwork? "

No build thread, just reached out to a few folks who know what they're doing as this was a first for me. Hardware and hull were in great shape. It doesn't look like it has been paddled much at all. The few scratches are most like from my time in it last summer (before this refinish).

So it was just woodwork. I debated about taking it all off to refinish, but I had a lot of fear that it would not fit back on and I'd take the boat too much out of it's original shape. So I just left it all on and carefully worked on it by hand sanding and masking tape with the stain and spar urethane.

A really gratifying project!

That canoe looks purdier than a $20 oar.