: From cruising around the net, it looks like maybe 3/16" x 2" bolts
: for the thwarts and yoke and 3/16" x 4 or 6" for the seats? I'm
: going to try to make my own seat hangers out of ash.

Just make one call to Clark Craft. They have 4 inch long 10x24 Silicon Bronze canoe bolts with nut and washer for $1.15 each. You can cut them shorter for attaching thwarts, and use full length for attaching seats.

Either go to www.clarkcraft.com and follow the links to building supplies, and then canoe supplies, or just go directly to:

http://www.clarkcraft.com/cgi-supplies/shop.pl?type=topic&topic_name_value=canoe_bolt&cart_id=e2f37c0fba70939d2660dde1cb9979c9

The bolt head gets pulled into the top of the gunwale as you tighten the nut, so it doesn't rotate. A drilled out dowel rod or square piece of wood adjusts the amount that your canoe seat hangs doen from the gunwale. the cnaoe seat goes under that, then the single washer and nut.

Canoes do not vibrate like motorized machinery, so you don't need to worry about the nut vibrating off, and you won't need a lock washer or a self locking nut. You'll want to remove these every couple of years to make it easy to revarnish the inside of the canoe and the underside of the seats, so don't try to make a permanent connection here. If you are really worried about the nuts getting lost, put a single drop of varnish on the threads at the end of the bolt.

Have you considered making an adjsutable seat for the bow person? If you don't have seats in yet it is a fairly simple process. Instead of hanging the bos seat directly from the gunwales you hang two supports, one on each side of the boat, and rest the seat on these. The seat cna slide along on top of these supports so tha paddlers with long legs can pust it back. Also, smaller, lighter paddlers can push the seat forward so they can reach over a narrower part of the canoe and also (by moving their weight further forward) keep the boat in trim.
Some people also slide the bow seat as far toward the middle of the boat as they can get it and paddle the boat "backwards" when paddling solo. Of course with a symmetrical canoe there really is no difference in backwards or forwards movement.

Generally the sterm person doesn't need this feature as they have plenty of leg room.

Hope this helps

PGJ