Day 21 and it's now a boat

The good thing about sewing on the skin, as long as you haven't cut off too much material, is that if you aren't happy with how it looks, you can undo the stitches and redo them. I wasn't happy with the way the bow looked, especially after I sewed up the stern, so I undid the stitches about half way and resewed, taking out some more slack. It's still a little wrinkly on the deck, but the hull is flat, and hopefully when I dye and shrink the skin, some more of those wrinkles will come out.

After doing the first row of stitches fore and aft to get the skin nice and tightish, I cut off the excess and did another row of stitches. I think they call it a blind stitch, since if you do it right, you don't actually see the stitches. This bit made me nervous, not the sewing, but the cutting. If I got too close to the first row of stitches when I cut, I wouldn't have enough to sew. It's worth leaving a little more than you think you'll need, since the excess is tucked underneath when you sew and you'll end up with neater stitches.



Here's an example of what fairly neat stitching looks like. The stitches at the top are the initial running stitch, used to take out all the slack and basically hold the skin on the boat. The other stitches are the blind stitch that hides all the excess.



Below is a less attractive bit of stitching. Because I had less excess here and not a lot of room to work due to the narrowness of the deck, it's a lot more bumpy and uneven. That said, I don't mind it. As I told my neighbour, it gives it an authentic look.



Once that lot of sewing is done it's time to fit the coaming. There were two things that concerned me here. The first was that when I cut the skin to size I'd be going through the seam I'd just sewn down the middle of the deck. I was a bit worried it'd all come undone, but it turned out not to be a problem. The other concern was that I'd get half way through sewing in the coaming and the strap I was using to hold it down would slip, allowing the coaming to move. I had three more straps I could have used, but they were all in the car and the car was at work with Donna.

As it turned out, the strap didn't move. I would recommend two straps though, for piece of mind. I'd also recommend you take care with placement of the straps, otherwise they cover up the holes in the coaming and make it really interesting when you're trying to sew.

I like the way there's now a slight curve in the coaming with the tension on it.



As I cut the cloth to size I put 40mm finishing nails through the holes to hold it in place. The only trouble with using the nails is they made my fingers dirty and they also left black marks where they'd been through the cloth. On the plus side, this made it easier to find the holes when you removed them and sewed.



Coming to the end of sewing the coaming was a bit like finishing a long race. I could see how many holes I had left before the whole thing was finished. Once I got there and tied off the thread, that was it, the actual building of the kayak was done.

There was a satisfying thunk as I loosened off the strap and the coaming ring sprung back to take the tension of the skin it was sewn to.

It's now a kayak.







All that remains now is to dye it and coat it in Corey's Goop, then fit the deck lines. I'm hoping it'll be on the water in about a week, the following weekend at the latest.

The last lot of stitching took about four and a half hours. It's amazing how time flies when you're having fun. 75 1/2 hours total time.