Kevlar roving, (threads) are added to the canoe diagonally to add strength to the shell of the thing.   Very lightweight, but with tremendous tensile strength.   I can't break them.   They are glued at the gunwales with a hot melt glue tape.  This glue has enormous holding power in the plane of the tape, but surprisingly little strength if you pull away from that plane.  Being a hot melt adhesive, it is also easy to retighten a strand if it appears to have some slack.

Once the roving was on, it was time for the Dacron to be glued on with the same hot melt tape.   I was in new territory since I have no experience with gluing and shrinking the dacron to the shell, but with a little practice on scraps and a bit of caution with the ironing action and temperature setting, it all worked very well.

The next thing will be to paint the dacron with varnish which will waterproof it and actually glue it to the stringers.

Did some baling of hay here with our equipment, then got an offer from a neighboring farm to buy the standing grass hay that we had left... and they would harvest it.   It sounded great since our baler is making some serious sounds that portend equipment death.   So El-Vi Farms cut, raked, and baled the hay.   Their equipment makes ours look pretty puny by comparison.

Our baler makes bales that weigh about 40#.   Theirs averaged 435# each, and they were set a bit smaller than they meant to.








Then they came to pick them up and haul them away.   Helps to have the right tools.   Fun to watch... and I didn't even get tired.

Slowly getting back to the boat project. Center thwart is in, seat frames are in.   Sanded everything and 2 coats of varnish on.   Amazing how much surface area all those stringers and ribs add up to.

Steam bent to pieces of ash around the bow stem and stern stem while it was easy to use the boat as a form.

Next thing will be the kevlar roving that gives a lot of diagonal strength, and then the dacron covering.