Kudzu

I am all all about saving weight, while you will never know the difference paddling you will feel the difference handling the boat on land. But, while you could do what you are thinking I see no advantage and a lot of extra work and possible leaks. All your going to save is the weight difference of the deck and I would be surprised if you saved one pound by doing that.

And I am beginning to think the same thing.

First off, I am getting some emails with issues with several coatings relaxing the fabric. I suspect what is happening is too much dependence on shrinking the fabric and for whatever reason the finishes are just relaxing the fabric back to it's pre-shrunk state. I have done a video showing how I sew on a skin tight but I am sure it's not easy for the first timer. I pretty sure if you start with a tight skin it will stay tight. Boats I have skinned and painted don't have this problem and I sew my skins drum tight. The only shrinking is typical just a few wrinkles around the coaming. But I am aware of this but not sure what to do. I am debating if I want to continue to sell this fabric or not. Problem is the other options are substantially more expensive. The premium fabric is a better fabric but it costs me well over $1,000 per rol. The is a slower seller because of the price. Everyone wants cheap.

As has been said before, this is just a bad idea. Putting screws into the edges of the plywood is the weakest way to attach anything to the plywood. The constant flex of the frame is going to trying to pry those apar and if used enough it will damage the plywood. That is why we never suggest this.

Filling the weave is related to epoxy and fiberglass cloth and not paint. You keep applying epoxy to get a smoother surface. This is a fabric boat, not fiberglass and people mix the two up all the time but paint is not epoxy. It is thin film coating and if put on like epoxy, thick enough to fill the weave it will crack and peel off eventually.

Depends on how you paint, but 3 coats is what I do. The reason I say this, I had a student in my first class that put his paint on thin and I didn't realize it. Took it the water and it leaked like a sieve! Everyone has used a quart to paint theirs and he had half of his quart left. He added another two coats and wrote me it was fine then. But that was embarrassing for me and him.

Fabric doesn't span large open spaces well. It will alway bow upwards at least some. So you would want several stringers running for and aft of the boat. Then you would want at least partial floor boards. Yes I think it could be done but I think there are better designs than a flat bottom. I paddled aluminum flat bottoms as a kid and they have no directional stability. Really hard to paddle in s straight line. They are very stable but when you do lean to far they flip with NO WARNING. Suddenly you're upside down wondering what happened. I am sure it can be done but I think there are better hull designs out there that would be used more.

Bad idea. Some woods bend well and some don't and cedar is one that doesn't. White oak is the best. Maple worked well for me too as you know. There are a few others that will work but these are what I have used. As a side note spraying water on it does nothing. It is the heat that makes in bendy, not water. You don't want extremely dry wood but again the heat is the reason it bends. We use steam because it will not get hot enough to burn the wood, not because of the water.

I have a large spool of some sort of braided line that I have used for all my client boats. I like it best because it is strong enough I don't have to double it up to pull the skin really tight. I have looked for a supplier for something similar for a long time and have given up. Just can't find anything in small spools I can sell. But, the line I sell doubled up works. Sinew will work. Braided fishing line works. Nothing magic there, I just don't use nylon based because of the stretch.

If there are no slots there aren't any. I don't have plans in front of me but I don't think there are any. Just the fanny beams you sit on.

Each frame is numbered by it's location in foot and inches. So your can just use the numbers on the plans.

OK. That makes sense. I was thinking I had only built two and mine modified several times and finally recycled.

I built??

I will be honest, I am confused. I have multiple versions on the computer for this boat where I played with it over the years. I did find one version that 'appears' to the correct one and appears that it it 1" to high and should be 1-25/32". I will have to spend some time later on and get this straightened out before we print any more books.

Found it. I created a Spread Sheet that converted the dimensions to Inches and Metric. Decimal point was in the wrong place on this dimension so that is why it is wrong on both version. Imperial should be 3-2/32 Metric should be 2.54 Please post photos as you build. Not seen anyone's photos of this boat yet.