The most important part of steam bending is to start with good bending wood in the first place. This is usually some sort of clear, straight grained, bendable species that is freshly sawn with a relatively high moisture content. After that, how are you break it down makes a big difference in bend-ability and...
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Video: How tough is the skin?
For understandable reasons, the most common questions I get about skin on frame have to do with durability. Just like every boat the answer has to do with how it’s built. My general approach to choosing scantlings and coverings for my skin boats is to start out by building light and then abusing the...
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Experiments with earth pigments
I’m trying to standardize rare earth pigment color recommendations so people have a better idea of what colors they can expect without just pouring in some pigment and hoping for the best on their brand new boat. For this first test I divided 32 ounces of the part B polyurethane into 2 ounce cups...
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Oiling the frame with Corey’s Pine Tar Boat Sauce
Generally I finish my frames with Watco danish oil, not because it has any special marine properties but just because it’s relatively inexpensive, it penetrates well, and it dries quickly. In any project where you can’t paint all the surfaces you don’t want a hard encapsulation because water is just going to get behind...
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Time lapse: Earth pigment tests
Before I talk about what’s going on here, hit that music button, I had fun with this one! It always sucks when you finish a skinboat and it didn’t turn out the color you wanted. To help mitigate this potential I’m doing a couple big experiments this year: The first one from a few...
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Don’t go cheap on the bending wood
95% of the time someone has a problem building any of my boats it’s because they tried to cheap out on bending wood. With my kayaks and sometimes the smaller pack canoes you can make certain kiln dried woods work at the cost of some additional frustration and kindling production, but for our larger...
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New canoe outfitted and ready for action
Finally got the new canoe outfitted and ready for action. After the briefest of test paddles a couple days ago I decided that it was just a squeak outside of the size that I would like to use sitting low with a kayak paddle so I decided to set this up as a solo...
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Using Acetal/Delrin for small boat wear strips?
Does anyone here have experience using Acetal/Delrin as small boat wear strips? I recently bought some and made some strips for my newest canoe and as far as I can tell from everything I’m reading and how it feels to work with I think this could be a really great option. It’s tougher than...
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Time lapse: Coating the canoe
We finished re-shooting the coating section of the skin on frame canoe building course yesterday, completing a month long work push to reshoot the entire course. I’m looking forward to getting back to the more creative side of things in the coming months! The coating I’m using here is the two-part polyurethane sold by...
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New source for bending oak
We are thrilled to have a new source for some of the best quality bending oak I’ve ever seen at a ridiculously fair price! Quality bending oak can be hard to find which is why I was blown away when a student sent me a picture of some White Oak they purchased from J....
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Timelapse: Canoe build: Bending in the ribs
Liz and I have been slogging through Canoe Building Course updates for the last few weeks so I haven’t had much of a chance to do anything creative, but the rib bending videos from last year are still pretty solid so we made this time lapse instead (check out the music!) The secret to...
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Video: East Greenland Kayak build, Day 7: Coating the kayak
East Greenland Kayak build, Day 7. Coating the kayak. Nearing the end of the build now, I coat the nylon skin with 2 part polyurethane. Pioneered by Corey Freedman of skinboats.org this coating is durable, easy to apply, and relatively non-toxic. I don’t necessarily love the glossy look of it, and I wish that...
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Brass stem bands
It’s incredibly easy for any small boat build to get submerged in unnecessary doodads and gewgaws. I’ve mostly managed to avoid this for the better half of my kayak building career because I was chained to a six-day in-person build schedule that didn’t allow for an ounce of fat. Now that I teach online...
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Toggles and rub strips
The toggles and rub strips that I use on my kayaks are made out of high density polyethylene. On Inuit kayaks these were sometimes made out of antler or bone, but most often made out of ivory from walrus kills. Speaking from experience, neither bone nor antler is very durable in this application, but...
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On YouTube: Skin-on-Frame Kayak Construction Details, Part 2: Skin, Coating, and Outfitting
We just posted part 2 of our Skin on Frame Construction Details video to the Cape Falcon Kayak YouTube channel. In this second half we discuss fabric choices, coating, deck rigging, cockpit outfitting and gear storage. Whether you’re interested in building your own boat or having us build one for you this video gives...
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