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Kayak and Canoe Design Bulletin Board
Re: building a skin-on-frame *Pic*
Posted By: Greg Stamer In Response To: Re: building a skin-on-frame (Mike Hanks)
Date: Monday, 19 June 2000, at 3:33 p.m.
Dean,
Chris Cunningham's two articles on building a SW Greenland kayak are an excellent resource, although he did make a few personal modifications with regards to the the masik placement, rib construction and the skinning method. If you don't want to try his "hammock" method of skinning, most builders add offset loops just inside the gunwales, fore and aft of the cockpit, to allow a cord to be zigzagged between. You then pull on the fabric with your fingers (to avoid pulling the loops out) and tighten the cord and repeat until the skin is tight. This method is very tough on the fingers but is the method that most "traditional" builders seem to use.
An excellent companion to Cunningham's article is (Greenlander) H.C. Petersen's "Instruction in Kayak Building". This small book complements Chris's article and offers insights to traditional construction techniques. Some builders who have built a kayak solely to Petersen's book claim that the cockpit is too far forward. I used Cunninghams' method for finding the cockpit placement instead.
All of my (skin) boat building and paddlemaking has been done in an 8' X 19' section of the garage. Not ideal, but you can make do with limited spaces.
As far as a kayak covering goes, several years ago at a symposium someone asked John Heath what the Greenlanders used in the past. His response was four skins of seals. He could not understand why everyone had such a strange look on their face until he realized that they interpreted his words as "foreskins of seals"!
Happy Building
Greg Stamer
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