Boats
Baidarka Building Process
The baidarka building process:
Gunwale prep
The Deck
Bow, Stern and Keelson
Ribs
Hull Stringers
Deck Stringers and Cockpit
Skin Sewing
Finishing
The Baidarka Building Process Illustrated
Finishing the boat
Once the sewing of the skin is complete, we need to seal the skin and make it waterproof.
Nylon skin will shrink on exposure to water. So before applying any sealant, we wet it down and let it dry. When dry, it becomes more tight than before. It is now ready for sealing.
Painting the skin has a twofold purpose, it makes the skin watertight and it fills in the weave to make the skin smoother. A number of skin treatments are available. I have used exterior urethane varnish, latex paint and two part urethane.
Painting the skin also has decorative potential. Here some paint was dripped on the skin to simulate sealskin. Real rawhide skin would have had the hair removed of course and would not have had the characteristic seal fur speckles, but with paint, you get to improvise.
Urethane varnish is relatively cheap and gives the skin a nice yellowish tone, similar to real animal hide. It also leaves the skin slightly translucent, allowing the frame of the boat to show through when backlit. Two coats are sufficient to make the boat waterproof. An additional coat may be required to make the hull perfectly smooth.
I have tried latex paint on a nylon skin. Results were mixed. The latex paint works quite well and goes on nicely and does not try to run and sag like varnish, but its adhesion to the nylon is not that good.
I also like to add a rub strip to the keelson near the tail of the boat. The rub strip is a piece of wood pegged to the keelson. Since the pegs penetrate the skin, I usually add a little sealant to the space between the rubstrip and the boat before pegging the rubstrip in place. The sealant then settles around the pegs and keeps water from seeping into the boat.
On this boat, I didn't add the rubstrip until after I abraded the the paint off the tail. This particular paint job had a base layer of latex paint. As you can see, it is not just abraded but seems to be peeled off, meaning that it holds together better with itself than it holds on to the nylon fabric.
And here the rubstrip is installed. You can make it longer of course, but I have found that in most cases, abrasion seems to focus near the tail.