I wonder of you might be able to post an image of the issue with the tack heads? Toms' boats (in my opinion) are worthy of proper care. I would not consider glassing one of his canoes. Faced with this issue, I would do one of several things.
I might put it to the side until I could locate someone to properly recover, buy one of those modern hulls to use while you do that. Be aware that you will not enjoy the modern boat even though whatever you acquire may be perfectly useable. You have been spoiled.
Or, you might consider tackling this yourself. It turns out that putting on Dacron is not too complicated. It might be too much to expect to achieve Toms level of finish, but you should certainly be able to make the boat serviceable. There have been several threads on this site that offered advice about applying dacron.
Or, you might be able to kluge something so that it can be used while you either do it yourself, or take it to someone who can properly sort it out. I'm thinking that many of Toms hulls had two tone paint jobs. Would it be possible to layer a cloth over the damaged areas? The dacron is attached with adhesive and heat. Is it possible to layer over the holes? That was the reason for the request for images, to assess the practicality of that approach. Once such a repair is done, cover it up with paint.....This would seem like a very risky fix in that heating the adhesive might damage the paint.... Alternatively, decorative tape or vinyl to cover the flaws?
