Day 11, Row/sail canoe, version 2. Build time: 4hrs.
Coated the boat/boats today. The coating I use to waterproof and protect the raw nylon cloth is the 2 part polyurethane sold by skinboats.org. It’s not a perfect coating due to lack of UV resistance but it is damn tough, long lasting finish that’s a good match for the flexible nylon fiber, the similarity in stretch giving the finished boat ability to absorb horrendous impacts (like ripping the awning OFF of a McDonalds drive through. You know who you are).
The process is 3 coats wet on wet, it takes 2 hours, and that’s the last thing you have to do to it for five to ten years. Once you’ve built boats that way it’s almost impossible to go back to anything else.
The skin on my rowing canoe is a 12oz nylon. I really don’t like this stuff. Poor stretch, poor shrink, heavy, difficult to work with. Mostly I just put it on because I need to get used to working with it for my dinghy experiments this summer.
The mid size pack canoe is covered with the 9 oz ‘Xtra Tuff’ fabric (I get all this stuff from skinboats.org) which is about as perfect as a skinboat fabric can get. Excellent conformity to compound curves, light but tough, amazing shrink.
The smallest canoe is covered with 7oz “Primo” cloth. This is a super tight weave nylon that is still quite strong for its weight, it absorbs very little coating and takes on a cool transparent look. Shrinks less than the Xtra Tuff but much better than the 12 oz. A good choice for an ultralight boat that can still handle normal use.
There are certainly other choices for skins and coatings, with their own advantages and disadvantages. This is just what works well for me.
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