Greetings

[fuzzyvulf]

Love the wind in the willows ref.

    Hello everyone.  I love boating and the idea of boat building but am afraid I am a (nearly) complete idiot when it comes with where to start.  Being disabled throws a curve into a lot of possible projects but I'm excited about finding this site. 

    As a very small kid my father and grandfather and from what I understand my great grandfather built boats.  My great grandfather died long before I was born.  When my grandfather died when I was 4 my dad just ditched the whole thing because it made him sad to not be able have his dad with him anymore.  I don't think he ever got over it really. 

    Over the years, by looking at the few boats that they built which still remained and finally about 3 years ago I got my dad to talk about it enough to draw up a set of plans of the main type of boat they built.  The boats were light enough that when I was 10 I could portage my little 12 footer by myself, also carrying my sleeping bag, water and food for a couple of days.  While I was in the military, a couple of little jerks vandalized my small boat by repeatedly throwing bricks at the bottom until they had broken every rib.  The main problem is that some of the materials which my dad and grandfather used back then don't exist now or are so expensive they are simply beyond my budget.  I am not familiar with all of the options, materials available to me now.  I want to stay true to the "skin" over rib design, but will go another route if it will just get the same curves and performance of those boats.  I have tried a number of boats and have never found one which was as much a pleasure to be in "to mess about in" as the ones the patriarchs of my family used to build.

    I think the desire to build boats is in my blood.  Over the years I have searched for a design which matched our family's and I have found bits and pieces here and there.  Some I found in the watercraft of the far northern Native Americans.  Some I found in the Cajun bayou alligator hunting boats which had some of their influence from the natives of that area.  The general outline echoes a little of the Polynesian reed craft.  There were a couple of stories of origins which were told which I have found some support for which I'll either include in a later post or if I can figure out if this place has a bio page I'll post them there.  I look forward too learning from all of you folks and hopefully some tidbit of what little I know will either help or at least give some of you creative and craftsman minded folk an idea which will help as well.

Thanks

Fuzzy

[lbrewer]

Welcome Fuzzy,

That was certainly an interesting introduction.  I'd love to know more about the boats you've described and what made them unique in their appeal to you.  It's great your dad drew up a plan before the idea was lost.  You'll find a wealth of information just scanning through the posts that have already been written.  You'll also find that there isn't a nicer group of folks on the internet, all willing to help, when you have a question.  The materials that you described as "no longer available" may have an alternative if you can give us some more info.

Larry

[fuzzyvulf]

Thanks for the reply.  Well the main material that they used was a fabric which was a lot like tent material on steroids.  They said that before they had used that fabric they had used a number of different things including something called "duck" *(spelling?)  They said that a lot of the other things they had used would either rot or become brittle.  This newer stuff was a polyester fabric with fiberglass inside the strands of polyester.  As far as I know it was used to reinforce everything from certain types of tires to saw mill belts.  It was such a tight weave that it was nearly waterproof right off of the roll.  After they stretched it over the ribs of the boat they just put on a coat of marine grade paint and it was good to go.  I don't know any name for it.  I know the small tire manufacturer that used to use it near here quit using it years ago and they have since shut down.  I am searching through old photos to see if I can find a picture of me in my little 12 footer.

[DGentry]

Hi!

Sounds like you are talking about a skin-on-frame boat. From an older era (1950s), there were many easily home-built, kayak-like, designs by Percy Blandford. You can still find these designs on the net, and on the water. Check out the antique "Fol-bot" too, for similar boats

The coverings of those boats were usually canvas, aka cotton duck, painted on the outside. Canvas does rot, eventually. I don't know what else your Dad skinned your boat with, and it doesn't really matter as there are now many options.

SOF boats are still very common, and surprisingly quick and easy to build. And, like I said, there are a variety of options one can choose to skin the boat with. I suggest you take a long gander at Tom Yost's website. He has many designs, and complete building instructions (all free) for non-traditional SOF kayaks. http://www.yostwerks.com

In particular, his non-folding, wooden framed, construction is the fastest, cheapest and quickest to build - check out his Sea Bee design, for a short boat like you may have had.

http://yostwerks.com/SeaBeeFrameA1.html

Of course, SOF boats don't have to be kayaks - just about any small boat design can be modified for that technique. You can peruse a couple of my recent posts, here, about a SOF Wee Lassie canoe I just completed. Also, inter-library loan can get you a copy of Robert Morris' "Building Skin on Frame Boats," which details the process of a more traditional construction manner (lots of steam bent ribs, as opposed to a few plywood frames), which is a bit more suited to open boat construction.

Anyway, what I'm saying, in a roundabout fashion, is that you could likely easily closely reproduce the boat you once had. Building a SOF boat doesn't take a lot of skill or tools or time or money. You can do it, too!

Dave Gentry

[lbrewer]

The first boat I built was a skin on frame kayak/canoe hybrid from a plan in one of the  "*mechanix" magazines of the mid 1960's.  I used "mattress ticking" for the skin as suggested in the magazine and just kept painting it till it didn't leak!  I had a blast in that boat.  I  was the only kid I knew who could "run the rapids" (that would be the area drainage ditches after an afternoon thunderstorm) in a boat that I built myself. 

Xynole is a tight-weave polyester fabric used with epoxy as hull sheathing because of its abrasion resistance.  I've never heard anyone use it in SOF construction but it might lend itself to some experimentation.  Maybe Tom Lathrop will chime in.  He uses it and recommends it.

Larry

[Ken_Potts]

Welcome aboard! You'll find a lot of fun and helpful people here.

My skin-on-frame kayak had 1000 denier cordura (the stuff that's used for the abrasion-resistant patches on backpacks or ski pants) that had a waterproof coating on one side.  I put the coated side of the fabric on the inside of the boat and painted the outside with oil-based house paint.  It turned out the fabric was heavier than it needed to be (600 denier would have been fine).  It also had the curious property of relaxing when it was in water and tightening up when warmed by the sun so I would arrive at the lake with the skin drum-tight and after a little while fishing there would be wrinkles in the hull.  Maybe the stretching had something to do with the weave?  The boat didn't leak a single drop, though, until I ran the Haw river one day and hit about a thousand rocks.

Dawn S has a skin-on-frame kayak and hopefully will enlighten us on the skin material when she gets home from scouting the Carolina 100 route.

[DGentry]

Standard skins for SOF boats, nowadays, are "ballistic" nylons, polyesters (like Dacron), #10 canvas duck, and polyester cored PVC (like truck tarp material). Other stuff can be used, too, obviously.

Only the sandwiched PVC doesn't need a waterproof coating after it is attached to the boat.

Some skin coatings: Coelan, "Corey's goop," paint, polyurethane varnishes, hypalon, and neoprene.

Each skin type and the different coatings have different characteristics. One of nylon's is the fact that it often relaxes when it gets cold (and wet), the tightens up again when it warms. But, not all nylons relax as much as others, and it is very tough stuff.

Canvas actually gets tighter when it gets wet, but is not nearly as strong as similar weight nylon - plus it can rot.

Polyester fabrics are generally stable, but some can be heat shrunk to fit tight around the frame. Not as strong or puncture resistant as nylon.

Anyway, that's not a definitive list, just a basic idea of the current norm.

[tnzeibig]

You might be interested in this site - http://www.gaboats.com/  - designs by Montfort.  I built his 18' snowshoe traveler - it was a fun build.

[Greg Luckett]

You might be interested in this site - http://www.gaboats.com/  - designs by Montfort.  I built his 18' snowshoe traveler - it was a fun build.

I have a book on the shelf about this too.  Interesting but I have never actually seen one up close....or even at a distance.