Skin on frame solo canoe build, Day 7

Skin on frame solo canoe, Day 7) 5hrs.
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Skinned the canoe today and then colored with fabric dye in the afternoon. This time I experimented with mounting the rub rail 1/8 of an inch down on the outside. I figured this would give me a nice little notch to drop my hot knife into while cutting away the skin, potentially resulting in less discoloration from burning and making it possible for me to refinish the top of the gunwale later - which would be nice because after a season of it can look a bit worn and if you try to sand the surface with the skin sandwiched in between it just fuzzes up and looks terrible.
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After I was finished I realized that this was a stupid idea because now the catamaran boards would be rubbing exclusively on the cedar and not on the cedar combined with the ash. Also, when it comes time to reskin, not having used the top of the gunwale as an alignment reference there would be no good way for me to perfectly re-mount the gunwales, which is important because it’s necessary to drill through the skin to keep it from twisting around the screws, and you really would not want to drill that shallow pilot anywhere but directly on top of the previous hole.
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This is most of what I do here, just experimenting with ideas and making mistakes so my students don’t have to. On average it seems like about one in five of my ideas tends to be a useful innovation, and the other four end up being diversions, dead ends, or important lessons in what not to do.
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I’m not particularly thrilled with the color on this one. I really wanted dark chestnut/brown, but I did that on the last solo, also darker colors show their age much faster so it’s pragmatic to stick with lighter, warmer colors where resale value is a factor. I was looking for a more muted gold than I put on my kayaks, but I overdid the brown, and crossed the line that divides goldenrod from babys**t. (Liz, ever more diplomatic, calls its ochre.) It is what it is.
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Skin on frame solo canoe, Day 7. Build time: 5hrs.

Skinned the canoe today and then colored with fabric dye in the afternoon. This time I experimented with mounting the rub rail 1/8 of an inch down on the outside. I figured this would give me a nice little notch to drop my hot knife into while cutting away the skin, potentially resulting in less discoloration from burning and making it possible for me to refinish the top of the gunwale later – which would be nice because after a season of it can look a bit worn and if you try to sand the surface with the skin sandwiched in between it just fuzzes up and looks terrible.

After I was finished I realized that this was a stupid idea because now the catamaran boards would be rubbing exclusively on the cedar and not on the cedar combined with the ash. Also, when it comes time to reskin, not having used the top of the gunwale as an alignment reference there would be no good way for me to perfectly re-mount the gunwales, which is important because it’s necessary to drill through the skin to keep it from twisting around the screws, and you really would not want to drill that shallow pilot anywhere but directly on top of the previous hole.

This is most of what I do here, just experimenting with ideas and making mistakes so my students don’t have to. On average it seems like about one in five of my ideas tends to be a useful innovation, and the other four end up being diversions, dead ends, or important lessons in what not to do.

I’m not particularly thrilled with the color on this one. I really wanted dark chestnut/brown, but I did that on the last solo, also darker colors show their age much faster so it’s pragmatic to stick with lighter, warmer colors where resale value is a factor. I was looking for a more muted gold than I put on my kayaks, but I overdid the brown, and crossed the line that divides goldenrod from babys**t. (Liz, ever more diplomatic, calls its ochre.) It is what it is.