: Hi Bill,
: You on a diet?Good to see some moderation ie Firestar being the
: diminuative form of Rob's Baidarka set.I don't want to grow any
: more either.
: As you may know I ended up building two Firestars, one for me and
: the other one for,,, me as well....My wife knows she'll get left
: behind if we don't go in the well travelled Seabear
: double.Launching #2 [Offcut]This Saturday. Private ceremony
: where I get to roll into the water getting wet in traditional
: way, instead of splashing the boat with bubbly.The well deserved
: #2 boat royalty will be on it's way to Rob shortly after,as long
: as it floats....I deviated traditional features with some safety
: inovations I'd love to share but am too much disconnected with
: the interr web to post the pix.These have proved unique and also
: excellent, so I duplicated them.
: I built two because I managed to complete the first to a seaworthy
: stage without cutting the hatches.I used shear clamp strips.
: Now I can paddle my favourite boat whilst I cut the holes in the
: other.Paddling is priority #1.making to paddle is priority #2.
: Black?But Lignum Viti is extremly heavy, very expensive and usually
: comes in bowling ball shapes or magician wands.Cheers.

Hi Paul,

Change of plans, now going to be the Shooting Star, slightly smaller yet. It'll be a day boat, it's how my boats get used mostly and with family obligations now will likely be the only way they'll be used for a few years at least.

Ebonizing is a natural chemical treatment of wood to turn it black, normally done on hardwoods, oak mostly, so will be lots of experiments to do it with cedar. There are other ways too if this doesn't work, been researching coloring wood for a couple months now. It won't be painted btw, well the bottom will get a graphite treatment, makes it "so" simple to use and impervious to damage.

There will be trim too, not got the deck figured out yet.

Bill H.