bwhip

Sorry if this question has been asked before, but I used the search function and couldn't find it. I'm skinning a Ravenswood with 11.6 oz. polyester, using the double corded stitch method. I'm starting at the cockpit and I'm working toward the bow and stern, just like Jeff described in his Youtube video. My question is, how do I finish the bow and stern, where there's a lot of loose fabric? Do I trim it back and staple it down? Trim and sew, then cover the stitches with a rub strip? Any advice from you professionals is appreciated. Pictures too--always appreciated! thanks, Rich

That is a beautiful boat. I'd be proud to tie that to the top of my car.

Foolish Repulsive Old Gentleman? At least, that's how I've been described.

I'd be afraid of scratching that pretty see-through skin. It would probably be like getting the first door ding in a new car.

Looks like it's skinned in Mylar with graphite tensile threads--similar to reinforced Mylar racing sails. Is that hot glue on the stringers?

Oil and forget gets my vote.

For bow and stern lines, I use 3/16 inch rope that I tension with a modified trucker's hitch, which uses an alpine butterfly knot as the tensioning "pulley." DURRETTD explains their use up above. When I bought my racks, they came with a couple of long straps to use for the bow and stern lines. If you don't twist them up, they will flap all over the place while you drive, which is pretty distracting when in front of the windshield. If you don't trim the length of the strap (because you haul different length boats), then you have to deal with the excess tail too. I've found that rope is way simpler.

Lashing gloves. I normally use these when sewing knife sheaths, but they came in handy when lashing the frame. Just a cheap pair of (thin) leather work gloves with the fingers cut off. You maintain dexterity, due to your fingertips being exposed, but can still wrap and pull without cutting your hands. Leave the little fingers a bit longer since they get the most abuse. Use a dowel for the high tension pulls.

I have three laminates each for the coaming body and the lip--glued up with Tite Bond 3. I bought the mahogany as a piece of scrap from Edensaw Woods in Port Townsend, WA (I bought my Baltic birch there too). After I sliced it up, the interwebs informed me that mahogany doesn't steam bend. It worked OK, but I only have one coaming's worth of experience, so while mahogany doesn't work, it's the best I've ever tried. Edensaw had some "bending oak" in stock, and I might try that next time. That outbuilding is my blacksmithing shop, but lately it's where I store all the junk from my garage that was displaced by the Ravenswood build. I'll be paddling my Pygmy up at Lake Quinault this weekend. That is one beautiful place to be.

I'm using pure tung oil, thinned with mineral spirits, with some Japan drier added to speed up the cure.

I didn't like my first attempt at a strongback (clamshell type) so I pitched it and made a new one from layered veneer lumber (LVL). LVL is cut from big sheets of thick plywood and is laser straight, dimensionally stable, is rigid and it cost about $1.10 per linear foot. The stuff I used has about 13 laminations in 1.5 inches. We use it at work for making shipping crates (for countries that won't allow un-cooked lumber imports because of bugs). I haven't checked around that much to see if it's widely available. The strongback is made from two 15 foot 2x4s with intermittant spacer blocks screwed and glued between.

I just took my Ravenswood off of the strongback. Now to oil the stringers and install the foot braces. The coaming is steam bent mahogany. It seemed like it would be the hardest thing to do, so I did it first--last summer. This photo shows the coaming clamped up on the bending jig with the steamer in the background.

If you're going to car top your kayak with the cockpit cover on, add a retainer strap that hooks to your front bungees. It'll keep your cover from flying away.

What happened to your supplier of the 11 oz material?

I'd stay away from paracord as a perimeter line. Nylon paracord will stretch so much when wet, that it becomes next to useless when used during a rescue. Jeff's 3/16 black poly, or 4mm-5mm prusik cord would work better.

1. Stability 2. Resistance/ ease of paddling 3 Weight 4. Speed potential.

Beautiful boat. You did good. I collected a lot of sunburns at Howard Amon park during my well-spent youth. I developed a mean rock-skipping arm there too.

Awesome!

Thanks Jeff. Mystery solved.

Does anybody have any input on this? I have the same question on my Ravenswood.

You should name her "Russian Thistle," aka Tumbleweed. Glad she wasn't damaged during her cross-country jaunt.

I'm not a marketing guy, but the company I work for uses a lot of similar cut-aways at our different trade shows. It's pretty helpful for prospective customers to be able to look in, through the different layers, to see how something goes together. Shipping is a booger, but that's to be expected. Have you thought of setting up a laptop and presenting a slide show--maybe the step-by-step of a typical boat assembly that lasts a couple minutes? That might help. People tend to be attracted to flickering lights on a screen.

That seriously reminds me of 1970s vintage, patchwork bell-bottom hippy jeans. I thought those memories had been purged.

I just tried the two methods mentioned above, and got much better results than I did with my jigsaw and chisel. I had a little bit more trouble with the jigsaw only procedure, ala Jeff and Dave. It's probably just an issue with the quality of my jigsaw, more than anything else. It doesn't like the radius in Dave's #3 cut, so I had to run more of a straight diagonal as described by Jeff. It was much easier (for me) to drill a 1/2" hole per Action Tiger. With a good, concentric brad point drill, you can accurately place the holes so you don't overshoot the line. I finished the cuts with a Bosch U101AO jigsaw blade. All my test cuts turned out smooth and purty. Thanks again.

You could use an orca paint scheme. That oughta scare the sharks . . . but then you might attract unwanted attention during whale mating season.