Kudzu

To be blunt, I have found hatches pretty useless unless you are going camping or have need to haul a bunch of stuff. I rarely carry more than a spare paddle, water and some food maybe. Hatches just add weight and need upkeep. So I no long put them in my boats. YMMV of course. As for strip thickness on a coaming it depends on the wood. I have used maple which can be quite thick. I have used oak which has to thinner but bends well using a heat gun. I tired cherry for a client but could not get it thin enough to bend and gave up on that. I don't like wet wood because how do you glue wet wood? I bend mine dry with a heat gun, apply glue as I go. Regardless what wood you use your going to have to clamps. I bought some expensive Jorgy strap clamps that put out some really high clamping pressure but I still needed a few clamps. I see why and the curves in the coaming could be redesigned to work with a strap clamp but the design is used on ever boat and so few people laminate I am not going to do that.

Pockets are for nylon, not polyester. Follow the instructions in the book and I have video(s) on skinning on the web site.

I thought I added this, but buy you a set of canvas pliers. They are great for snugging the skin on open boats. Just watch it, you can pull it so tight you bow the stringer inward! These are the ones I have, not recommending this seller, just wanted to show what your looking for. https://usartsupply.com/products/usa-cp-521?utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=Google Shopping&gclid=Cj0KCQjwoub3BRC6ARIsABGhnybifaJ53VXr1p0n6g8nKQW88tSi3wg2_J0TpJgEoL3BetLzIffmAF0aAuw8EALw_wcB

I alway do the ends first but I do clamp the skin to the gunwales with spring clamps, pulling it snug. You can pull the skin pretty much in place except for the ends and it helps to make sure you don't have any unexpected slack.

Agreed! The 'selling point' of SOF is its lightweight. By deviating from the design your just adding weight with no practical advantage. Canoes are heavy by SOF standards to start with.

Can't really tell but that looks like a nasty break. If it were mine I would take it apart and reskin but I know you don't want too. Without seeing a better photo I am not sure the best way. But a block might work but it will flatten out the curve the wood has taken. But the problem there is there no way to clamp the block tight to the stringer. I can't think of an easy and safe way to fix it.

I was thinking more along this line

Very common, just pull them up.

This is exactly what the boat was designed for.

As i said in the download, we offer no support on these. But my book explains how to work with offsets if you can't figure it out.

Mine came in around 35 lbs I think. I want to say 38 but I really don't remember.

Since I have way to many kayaks I splitting time between the Sea Skiff and cleaning up some land we bought. Keeps me busy.

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??