Boat Building Forum

Find advice on all aspects of building your own kayak, canoe or any lightweight boats

Re: Skin on Wood Frame
By:Paul Jacobson
Date: 1/12/1999, 8:32 pm
In Response To: Re: Skin on Wood Frame (Tom)

> Thank you Roger I guess i will wait and just glue it after I get the deck
> covering on. I will go ahead and staple it on the inside now.

Don't worry about glue. No glue is needed. Whatever you use towaterproof the fabric is going to soak through and serve as all the glue you need

If you have already stapled the fabric to the out side you don't need to staple it to the inside, too. Just trim it off so that is it not much more that 1/2 inch past the wood frame.

When you cover the deck you'll staple that fabric to the same strip that you stapled the hull to. Again, trim the fabric about 1/2 inch past the staples.

Get 2 strips of wood about 1 inch wide and long enough to go from the front to the back. Varnish them -- at least two coats of varnish on all sides.

While the varnish is setting up, paint the hull and deck to waterproof them. There are a variety of paints you can use, but the easiest to find is any exterior house paint. Use two coats at least. After the paint is dry on the boat, and the varnish is dry on the wood strips, nail the strips over all those staples. This give you a nice trim edge, and helps keep the staples in. Copper nails are usually used here. Avoid plain iron or steel ones. They rust easily. You can also hold this on with stainless steel screws.

Every year you add another coat of paint to the hull.

If you have some scrap fabric that is 4 inches wide, or wider,you can lay that on some newspaper and give it two coats of paint, too. Save this for future patching. You can either sew the patches in place, then paint over the stitches to woaterproof things, or you can use a couple coats of rubber cement, or contact cement on both the outside of the hull, and the inside of the patch. Once the glue has dried, just press the patch in place and secure it with firm pressure. It should hold fine. Paint over it next year.

Enjoy your boat. Send some pictures of it , if you can. If there are more kayak frames in your alley, send us the address and we will be there to remove them.

Paul Jacobson

Messages In This Thread

Skin on Wood Frame
Tom -- 1/11/1999, 9:33 pm
Re: Skin on Wood Frame stolen
Travis -- 1/12/1999, 11:44 pm
Re: Frame stolen
Tom -- 1/15/1999, 3:23 pm
What a neighborhood!!
Mike Kestell -- 1/16/1999, 8:18 am
Re: stolen
Roger Tulk -- 1/15/1999, 12:08 pm
Re: stolen
Travis -- 1/15/1999, 7:24 pm
Re: stolen
Roger Tulk -- 1/15/1999, 11:01 pm
Re: stolen
Travis -- 1/16/1999, 2:04 am
Re: style
Don Beale -- 1/16/1999, 12:57 am
Re: Skin on Wood Frame
Roger Tulk -- 1/12/1999, 12:12 am
Re: Skin on Wood Frame
Roger Tulk -- 1/12/1999, 12:09 am
Re: Skin on Wood Frame
Roger Tulk -- 1/12/1999, 12:03 am
Re: Skin on Wood Frame
Tom -- 1/12/1999, 12:25 am
Re: Skin on Wood Frame
Paul Jacobson -- 1/12/1999, 8:32 pm