In his book, Chris Cunningham describes a skinning method where thes seam is located down a sheerline rather than down the centre. The skin is temporarily stapled to the frame as it's tightened and a straight needle can be used to sew 'coz the ends of the fabric meet at 70° or so.

This does leave a fold of fabric near the coaming that'll need to be sewn-down but it's much smaller than a centreline seam.

I too was wondering if there was any merit in doing the skin in 2 pieces (1 for the deck & another for the hull) & having 2 side-seams.

OK... it means twice as much sewing as a single seam, but (hopefully) it would be easier to get a wrinkle-free surface 'coz you could temporarily staple each piece of fabric independent of the other piece. If Chris C. is right, the sewing may be easier too.

I reckon it might make 'christmas wrapping the football' a bit easier.

What do others think ?

Regards,

Phil.

: I am getting closer to the skin-it stage for my project. It most resembles
: Tom Yost's construction method, but it's my "design". My next
: steps are to make the coaming and install the floorboards, then it's
: skinning time!

: Long ago and far away I built a skin on frame kayak. I used copper tacks to
: nail the sail canvas to the frame, doing the hull first and then the deck,
: overlapped at the sheer. That worked very well, never leaked, and never
: caused any problems.

: I have fabric from Goerge Dyson, and sail needles, but no confidence that I
: can do a decent jog of sewing the fabric along the deck ridge the way most
: of the kayaks I see are done. I know others do it, but I'm not good at
: sewing and I am good at messing stuff up. I am tempted to get monel
: staples and just, well, staple it, hull then deck, the way I did the first
: one, long ago and far away.

: I imagine it's an abhorent thought to the successful skin seamsters... but
: the worse picture in my mind is the botched mess I am fully qualified to
: create.

: I've watched online videos, read some books, poured over all the websites
: that I can find, and still have no confidence that I can sew a kayak cover
: well enough to pass my own inspection.

: If anyone around here has constructive advice please share it. If anyone has
: done one way and then wished they'd done it the other, please chip in. If
: anyone has completely botched the sewn cover, how did you proceed?

: Thanks for listening,

: Michael