Indian Girl Seat Construction

MGC

Scrapmaker
I am replacing the seats in an "Inc." IG. They were previously "repaired" and are a blend of original and damaged woods that are beyond repair. I believe that I am able to trust the pattern from the ones that I have but what I am not able to identify is how the seats were originally joined. There are no dowels or mortises present in any of the joints.

Does anyone have experience with these that can tell me how they should be assembled?

I am also interested to know how these were originally caned. Are the seats in the IG at the Clayton Boat Museum original caning (Dan)?

Attached are pictures of the seats that I am replacing.
 

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Hi MGC,

Here is a picture of an original seat in my 17' IG.

Not sure how its put together.

Paul

Sorry the site won't let me upload the picture.
 
Hi MGC,

Here is a picture of an original seat in my 17' IG.

Not sure how its put together.

Paul

Sorry the site won't let me upload the picture.

Thanks Paul, I think:D
If you can figure out how to post the picture please do since that would address one of my needs, how it is caned.

BR,

Mike
 
It did not like the ' after the 17 in the picture title.

Here we go.
 

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Thanks Dan/Paul,

That sums up the caning. I pulled the seats apart and except for the enormous nails that someone punched through them there were no dowel holes present. If anyone has had one of these apart I am still interested to learn how they should go back together. Otherwise, sometime in the next few days I'll decide between dowels or biscuits.

Mike
 
I have a couple IG's. The memory is weak but as I recall there were two dowels per, as opposed to mortise/tenon on 3250. Often seats are replacement and I had that too, but the real Rushton seats were dowelled, as best I can recall. I'm in Florida so can't walk out to the barn and check the seats for 3020. I haven't pulled them apart yet, but they are loose and I think dowelled too. I went through all my photos and didn't have any seat pics that showed them apart. Fred C. sent me some IG parts and he my recall better than I but I'm pretty sure dowells. As I think about it I did replace a stile and it was dowelled. So, there we have it....maybe.
 
Thanks Dan/Paul,

That sums up the caning. I pulled the seats apart and except for the enormous nails that someone punched through them there were no dowel holes present. If anyone has had one of these apart I am still interested to learn how they should go back together. Otherwise, sometime in the next few days I'll decide between dowels or biscuits.

Mike
Dowels over biscuits always, mortice and tenon over dowels if you are making new instead of repairing.Thats from a structural perspective, not historical. Hard to believe they are original if there is no evidence of dowels.
 
Dowels over biscuits always, mortice and tenon over dowels if you are making new instead of repairing.Thats from a structural perspective, not historical. Hard to believe they are original if there is no evidence of dowels.

Agree wrt dowels. I plan will use dowels although the bisquits are tempting.

Dave, thanks, that is what I was looking for....confirmation of pairs of dowels.

The absence of any dowels in these seats is pretty surprising....the seats must have been replaced very long ago and then poorly repaired since then. The old girl is coming back together and will get what are probably her third set of seats.

Mike
 
Just found a Rushton seat in my shop - it had been repaired with screws, so easy to take apart and confirm, assembled with pairs of 1/4" dowels.

Dan
 

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Perfect. Thank you Dan.
I cut the cherry pieces the other day and did not leave any material for tenons so at this point I am committed to using dowels.

I need to buy a better dowel drilling jig. Last time I made seats I had all kinds of alignment issues. I'll need to get that sorted before I assemble the seats.
 
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