Dave Wermuth
Who hid my paddle?
Hello from the kingdom of derelict canoe whisperings in Lovely Lapeer. I built a form from lines taken off a Penn Yan Guide 18'er sometime around 2000. And I made one canoe. Ferdy and I used it in Quetico a few times. I still had a derelict PY Guide 18' canoe with not much potential until one day, again, years ago, Denis Kallery called me up and asked if I could come up with a short cross section of a canoe that he could use at shows. We figured that a section out of the middle of the Penn Yan would fit the bill and so that's what we did. I then stood up the two ends in a corner of the barn. Then one March at the Quiet water symposium in East Lansing Gil Cramer had a display canoe he made by shortening his own derelict canoe and at some point I got to wondering what if? So I put the two ends of the old derelict together to make a solo canoe of 14 1/2' x about 32" and it worked quite well. Time marched on and I didn't have any more canoes for other people to restore so I got to thinking about the 18' form and decided to shorten it. I took 42" out of the middle and about an inch and a half from the stem forms. I am at the point of fairing the planking prior to taking it off the form. Having said all that, here's the question:
Has anyone ever tried ballistic nylon instead of canvas or dacron? I have a roll of 1650 d and I'm wondering if it's worth multiplying the experiment with the nylon. The goal is durability, rot resistance and Light weight.
Has anyone ever tried ballistic nylon instead of canvas or dacron? I have a roll of 1650 d and I'm wondering if it's worth multiplying the experiment with the nylon. The goal is durability, rot resistance and Light weight.