: 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...

Push pins (like thumb tacks with a plastic head) work great, do yourself a huge favor and don't buy the ones with the clear heads, nearly impossible to find when you drop them (and you will).

Same price as the ones with the colored heads that you can actually find before you step on one, don't ask me how I know this .

Bill H.