: I'm in the process of recovering an old kayak frame that my uncle made 50
: years ago. I'm using canvas. Do you put the cnavas on dry and then wet it
: to allow it to shrink to the frame,or do you wet the canvas first and
: stretch it to the frame. What type of paint do you use to paint the
: canvas? We want to surprise him,so we don't want to ask my uncle. He used
: old army duffle bag material and painted it with something he had in the
: garage. It lasted at least 25 yrs. before it dry rotted. Thanks for any
: help you can give me.

: Marianna

Hi Marianna

I, as well as others here, have built some Skin on Frame yaks and there are several different opinions as to canvas, synthetics, and finishes.

Do you have a two piece covering ( hull and deck seperate ) or a one piece sewn covering?

The Walrus, which many of us have built uses a two piece covering that doesn't need to be sewn. Just stapled to the gunwales, around deck and hull and shrunk (?) and painted, then the staples covered with a wood strip which also works as a rub-rail.

The general consenses about covering with canvas is that the 10 oz. cotton duck is a bit too light and will easily puncture, so many have gone to the # 10 duck, which is as mentioned below, around 14.7 oz. A couple of folks have tried the @12 cotton duck ( as I am doing on my Walrus ) and it comes in at around 11.5 oz per yard. Slightly stiffer than the 10 oz. I am basically going to use my boat on the local lakes and they are fairly clean and smooth so the puncture threat is somewhat lessoned. As of this time, I haven't heard of anyone that used the #12 cotton duck having any problems, so I'm going ahead with it on my boat.

As for shrinking... You can do as West mentioned, but it isn't really neccessary. If you get most of the wrinkles out during the application process, then the paint will shrink it some and take out small wrinkles.

As for the finish, most of those I've heard from have covered their boats with some sort of sealer " Snow-Roof " being the one I mostly remember being mentioned. Then, a water-based acrylic latex paint diluted to 50/50 with boiled linseed oil is painted over the entire boat. 3 or 4 coats have been used to fill the weave of the canvas, and on each successive coat, the mix of oil vs. paint has been altered. ( ie. Paint 60 / oil 40..... Paint 70 / oil 30 and so on with less oil on each coat ) The linseed oil keeps the latex paint flexible so that you don't get any chipping.

Sounds ilke a really fun project and will be greatly appreciated. Let us know how it turns out and maybe snap a couple of pics.

Rehd