Over the years I’ve found the toggle and leather deck line systems seen on many traditional kayaks to be far superior to shock cord. Objects on deck are held more securely (especially in surf) and any line on the boat can be used to lift, tow, or rescue.
Like a lot of people I started out making toggles out of hardwood, bone, or bits of antler but quickly realized the reason you almost never see this on traditional kayaks is because those materials just aren’t durable.
Ivory was used almost exclusively and machines very similarly to Delrin plastic. Delrin is overkill here so I’ve been using high density polyethylene for most of my kayak building career.
Fast forward to a couple days ago I decided I just didn’t like the look of white plastic on my new Greenland kayak so I hauled out this weird set of antlers I found on the side of the road and cut off the points. Of course, just like every time I had tried this before, the antler was much too fragile and chipped before I was even done cutting it. So it was back to the plastic.
I scratched up the toggles on a belt sander and Liz worked in some acrylic paint. Still nowhere near the ivory look I wanted, (you can see an actual piece of ivory next to the plastic in one of the photos) but at least it takes the edge off the white.
Pretty hard to photograph anything white against the black background, but you can see two stained toggles above a non stained one in the first and last photos.
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