East Greenland‘s Kayak Build, Day 6. Finishing the skinning and dyeing the nylon.
Once I get the coaming sewn on I tape it off and then boil a pot of hot water and vinegar to get ready to dye the skin.
Acid dye is just one of several ways to color a skin boat. It works well on nylon and creates vivid, translucent colors, but the darker colors are especially prone to fading with UV exposure. I don’t particularly like the look of that on my modern skin on frame designs which is why I tend to stick to the lighter end of the spectrum but I actually think that the fading looks nice on a traditional kayak, which starts to look like seal skin after about 5 years of hard use.
Another way to color skinboat is to mix pigments directly into the coating. This is less prone to fading but it also impacts the translucence of the boat and the color can be hard to control. The inside of the skin doesn’t look nearly as nice either. On the plus side pigment can be used on polyester and dye is limited to nylon. There’s advantages and disadvantages to both methods so I just go with fabric dye because it’s what I’m used to. (I cover this in a lot more detail in my YouTube video about adding color to skinboats.)
With the kayak still moist I use a steam iron on the deck to set the color and shrink out any wrinkles. I don’t iron the hull because that risks melting into the lashings. I’ve heard that you can do this same process with the hose from a wallpaper steamer, which would allow you to set the color on the bottom of the kayak as well, but I haven’t personally tried it yet.
In the summertime I dry the bottom of the kayak in the sunshine which does a great job of ‘popping’ the color.
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