: I was wondering if someone
: could give me the Readers Digest Condensed version of fabric and
: waterproof selection.

Todd,

Here's the Reader's Digest version on skinning options:
http://www.qajaqusa.org/cgi-bin/TechniqueForumArchive10_config.pl?review=13891

Dyson, Baidarka and Co is one source:
431 W. Holly St. (or 435)
Bellingham, WA 98225
360-734 9226

Corey Freedman's Skinboat School Store is another popular one-stop shop:
http://www.skinboats.org/skinboats/skin_boat_STORE.html

Brian Schulz at Cape Falcon Kayaks has a nice condensed tutorial for a quick method to skinning that correlates to the skin kits you can get from the Skinboat School link above:
http://capefalconkayak.com/howtoskinakayak.html
There are other ways to stitch the skin, but the simple whip stitch described above works very well. Corey gives some video tutorials on his site on a flat hidden stitch.

I'm not sure why you need staples, but there is more than one way to skin a cat. My skinning kit consists of a long straight and long curved needle, a roll of 30# artificial sinew, a thin carbon steel blade I can heat to cut nylon, a steam iron, squirt bottle of water, and a propane torch. I use pushpins to temporarily hold the fabric as Brian describes on the Cape Falcon site.

Hope that helps...