: Hello all,
: I am hopefully going to be skinning my wife’s boats and mine this weekend.
: I'm going to be using 8oz nylon that I got from Dyson. Does any body have
: any suggestions or helpful hints? All I have to go by are the three books
: that I have (Morris, Starr, & Cunningham). Does any body know about
: how long it takes to skin an 18 1/2 foot Greenland kayak?

: Any help would be great
: Thanks

: Richard

I've sewn several one piece skins using both 14oz and 8oz Nylon and 9oz
polyester from George Dyson. I've never pre stretched the skin ( nylon or
polyester), but instead simply cover the hull, and baste a stitch loosely
around the gunwales to hold the skin in place after the boat is turned over
with the deck up.

After trimming the deckridge with a overlap of at least 3 inches, I baste a
loose stitch along the deckridge, but make sure the loose stitch stays to one
side of the deckridge centerline so as to avoid having to cut through it with
my propane hot-knife. This eliminates the nasty job of removing seared
squidding line later.

Starting at the coaming front, I cut "sear" a foot at a time and then sew that
span with an "X" stitch, and proceed towards the bow, one foot at a time.
After that is completed, I return to the coaming and cut / sew from the coaming
to the stern, pulling the skin fairly tight if needed near the stern. I then
overlap the bow and stern skin, mark the centerline with a pencil, cut with the
hot-knife, and sew the ends shut. Whether using nylon or 9oz. polyester, this
results in a one piece skin. Aleut sterns are more difficult, but can still be
made as one piece skins.

For shrinking nylon, I wet the skin down with a spray bottle, and set the kayak
outside to dry. If it doesn't shrink evenly, I go back over any slack areas
and re-spray. I live in Colorado at 6300 feet and the humidity is often in
single digits. As such, shrinking the skin is easy, and there is little
tendency for the skin to go slack. I apply several, up to 8, coats of hypalon.

It takes me about 12 hours to sew an Aleut skin, less for a Greenland type due
to the simpler stem/stern. Then two more days to coat it with hypalon. ( See
Pic for 8oz nylon/hypalon skin). I sometimes cover the deckridge with a narrow
glued on flap of hypalon coated nylon to hide my usually, ok always, less than
perfect sewing.

I'm sure I've forgotten something. I always do. I'm also sure that the books do it differently, as I'm sort of old school on this.

Have fun,

Tom