Don't be surprised that your skin and coating cost more than the frame, it would be hard to build a frame that was expensive enough that this wouldn't be the case almost regardless of the materials you cover it with. Same with a strip boat- the glass and epoxy are much more expensive than the wood strips.

If you buy two batches of goop for 12-oz nylon you'll probably have a bit left for next time, but Corey is pretty spot-on with materials. He builds a lot of boats and knows the stuff he sells really well.

As far as alternatives, there are very few that are as specific for boat skin and as durable as this stuff. Coelan marine coating is possibly a better choice for durability and is much easier to apply, but costs almost twice what Corey's goop costs. Fox Industries sells a water-based Poly Urea coating that is very similar to goop, but you have to buy in large quantities, which negates the cost factor for a single boat.

There are lots of alternatives beyond this that people use, but they're not intended for this kind of application, and whenever you use a product for something it wasn't designed for you take a risk. Goop and Coelan are the only things designed for boat skins, and two of the few coatings flexible enough to work over stretchy nylon.

Nylon is very durable, and if you coat with anything other than these two things, you will probably have to reskin before the nylon needs to be replaced, so you have to figure that cost into your long-term strategy. If savings in the short term is your primary goal and you don't mind redoing your work at a much sooner interval, cotton canvas and high-quality oil-based paint is surprisingly durable. The flexibility of the canvas and paint are really well matched, and if you paddle in salt water mildew is much less of a problem. You can also consider something that doesn't need a coating, like vinyl.

This is a tough decision, probably the toughest of any part of building a SOF kayak. It comes up almost once a month on the Qajaq USA forum, so you might want to jump over there and search the archives for the opinions of people who build primarily skin boats.

Good Luck!

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