Caneing alternative

[ticonderoga]

I will be installing new seats in my OT HW closed gunwale form 1912 in the early spring.This will be a well used canoe, not a Sunday paddler. I have used different material for other of my canoes such as sheet cane, hand woven cane, babiche and wood slats. What I would like would be a very durable alternative to these materials. Is there a synthetic material that looks like babiche (rawhide) but is a cheaper and easier to instal alternative? Thanks for any ideas.

 

[rpg51]

There is synthetic cane out there on the market - not sure how durable it is. If you google around you will find it. Not sure what would be more durable than wood slats?

 

[Todd Bradshaw]

One option, though the bright white color may be kind of a put-off.
http://snowshoe.com/index.cfm?pageid=60&productid=Lace

I routinely re-color white rope for sail edges by giving it a quick dip in wood stain for a few seconds, followed by an immediate rinse in naptha. You need to rinse well or it will get stiff. The "principle" is that if you get stain on a white T-shirt you may be able to get most of it out, but you will never get the color all the way out.

Option #2 would be to see if Iverson Snowshoes will sell some neoprene lacing. Great stuff, though I don't expect it to be cheap.
http://www.iversonssnowshoes.com/

Stained rope - Minwax "Early American" shade. Oil-based wood stain

 

[paddler123]

Many of the summer camp canoes I have paddled have their seats laced with nylon cord. It's not super aesthetically pleasing, but it is very durable and pretty comfortable.

 

[ticonderoga]

One option, though the bright white color may be kind of a put-off.
http://snowshoe.com/index.cfm?pageid=60&productid=Lace

I routinely re-color white rope for sail edges by giving it a quick dip in wood stain for a few seconds, followed by an immediate rinse in naptha. You need to rinse well or it will get stiff. The "principle" is that if you get stain on a white T-shirt you may be able to get most of it out, but you will never get the color all the way out.

Option #2 would be to see if Iverson Snowshoes will sell some neoprene lacing. Great stuff, though I don't expect it to be cheap.
http://www.iversonssnowshoes.com/

Stained rope - Minwax "Early American" shade. Oil-based wood stain

I never thought of staining the "tubular nylon" webbing, I didnt think you could. I will give this a try. Thanks for the great advise!

 

[Todd Bradshaw]

Yep. Just test the process a bit on scrap to get your timing down and figure out how much you need to rinse it. Expect it to be a little stiffer than it was, but still quite workable. It also may help with UV protection. We have some hunks of polyester 3-strand out in the garden that have been there for over five years. They have faded some, but are still brown.

These all started out white.

 

[Greg Nolan]

The seats of the Keewaydin Cronje canoe that the Norumbega Chapter restored and donated to the WCHA's 2013 Assembly auction had been in bad shape and needed replacement. Originally the seats had been woven with some sort of cord, so while not attempting to exactly duplicate the original (partly because we were not sure what the original cord was made of, and partly because it was very thin), we did decided to use rope or cord rather than cane, flat webbing, or something else.

I got three strand white nylon from the Wallace Cordage Co. < http://www.wallacecordagecompany.com/ >, either #72 or #96 weight (I forget which). I chose to use three strand cord rather than braided cord because the original seat cording had been twisted rather than braided, and because I like the look of the three strand better than the braided. The twisted three strand proved to be a bit tricky to weave, because it wants to untwist as you are weaving it, especially once you are crisscrossing taut line already on the frame, or when going through a frame hole for the second time.

After the cord was woven on the already-varnished seat frame, I varnished (Petit's Captain's varnish) the cording using a small syringe, squirting (actually dribbling) a bit a varnish along the cording, just enough to wet it. When the varnish dried, the cording was a bit stiffer, but was still flexible and had a bit of color.

 

[Kevin French]

I've used this on the 3 seats I re-caned and like the results.

http://hhperkins.com/product_info.php/products_id/1670

 

[Cliff Ober]

Yep. Just test the process a bit on scrap to get your timing down and figure out how much you need to rinse it. Expect it to be a little stiffer than it was, but still quite workable. It also may help with UV protection. We have some hunks of polyester 3-strand out in the garden that have been there for over five years. They have faded some, but are still brown.

These all started out white.

Todd, something I've done over the years when I've needed custom colored plastics (usually light colors or clear) is to boil them in RIT fabric dye. A lot of plastic materials will absorb the color with no apparent degradation. I think aniline dyes would also work for this.

Cliff

 

[Todd Bradshaw]

It depends. Some aniline dyes are light-fast, but many are not. Despite the oil stain theoretically being transparent (on wood) the pigment is usually very fine bits of solid stuff, which tends to resist UV better. I don't know what's in RIT and have only used it on cotton and wool.

 

[davelanthier]

Have you considered automotive seat belt material? It works well, easy to install and comes in many colors. Just weave and staple to bottom of seat frame.