Paul Schmid recently built the Skin on frame kayak kit. He said he had a lot of fun doing it. It came out nice. He lashed the frame together with floss and used an amber colored varnish for the coating. He had earlier built the 42″ strip kayak and sent in a nice picture of that. This is just like building the real thing.

There was a little more space on the light deck to add two more LED flat panels. I did this one for a customer and will continue to offer it. Looks great and offers a lot of light in 3 shades of white, and best of all, can be dimmed to a light glow. At full output, I measured a useage of 49 watts! That is a lot of light for very little energy. My new kayak lights are built better than ever. Sold as a kit also.

This particular custom color, Fiji Blue, was very colorful. I have been using Behr latex paints from HM Depot and putting in an additive called Flotrol. This allows me to apply with a foam brush and get excellent results. I have also sprayed the product as well. This was one of the fiberglass 72 hulls.

Fun wood to work with, lighter, sands easy, glues well, looks great clear.

Steve bought the 96″ kit with Paulownia strips. Did a outstanding job in his log cabin in TX.

Beautiful place, perfect setting for the Canoe Chandelier!

Made his own decal of his dog.

I have sold quite a few of these as complete and kits. I redrew some of the forms so it goes together easier and stronger, plus the forms are now 1/2″ cabinet grade wood instead of 1/4″. CNC cut light deck. Very pleased with how it came out.

These are nice little clamps sold at Walmarts. They are very similar to the Harbor Freight ones. They are 97 cents while HF ones are 99 cents when on sale and usually have a limit of 5. These work well and readily available at stores or online.

The expanded version of the 96″ is ready to be delivered to PA. Fun project. First full size one I have built. Because I have built so many of the smaller canoes, it was a breeze. All the same.

I used the same forms with the centers cut of them so I was able to use the Harbor Freight 4″ sliding bar clamps to hold the strips in place. I have wondered why other people don’t do this?

Very pleased with how strong and lightweight it is! Light deck is ready to be installed. I have always said that building the models was just like building the real thing, but this is the real thing. A lot of fun. If you build one of the model kits, then you’d be well versed in building a full size one.

Light deck cross members dropped in place. Strong longitudinals. Hanging the canoe by four eye bolts instead of two. Will have six LED Flat panels and painted green.

Showing the 13 footer all glassed and ready to be popped off the forms, then the ribs and rails. The smaller canoe is the 96″, which it is a big canoe by itself. Building the full size canoe was exactly like building one of our kits. Lots of fun. Used the same 8′ strips and butted them.