Alright! The skin! The Cane!
I do not quite understand how people will say they love Nature, want to ‘commune' with it, and in order to do so purchase materials that are poisonous to nature to make, poisonous to nature to use (as they de-gas or shed micro-plastics), and poisonous to Nature to, well, never be able to dispose of. And, really, materials that mostly remove the individual from sensing Nature (this last is most obviously regarding waterproof-breathables and foamed water bottles). All just to go out and recreate. Something that serves no practical purpose other than self absorbed leisure.
Then too, that ‘recreation’ often seems to me to be more akin to combat. “I am going to go further into the woods, faster. I will do something that often kills people but I will survive. And tell other humans of my accomplishment.” And instead of being better at athletics or learning woodcraft, the attempt uses new, more destructive, humanist technology to set the records.
Makes no sense.
Every one of the chemicals spilled in the Ohio train wreck is used in some sense in some epoxy. Myself, I don’t believe the blame for that environmental disaster, for all the human, animal, and plant life impacted, lies on the train company cutting corners. But on every individual who insisted on cheaper epoxy delivered faster to their door.
I might take this moment to mention I may be preachy, but not a puritan. The boat I am building right now is held together with almost exclusively epoxy, and has it slathered over every surface. The skin is polyester. (Did you know polyurethane was created by the Nazi party in order to rebuild their war machine around the restrictions of the Treaty of Versaille? And now it is included in some manner in nearly every single packaged item we buy, and killing everything we see. ‘Ye shall know them by their roots.’) The GeoPolitical MilitaryIndustrial ConsumerComplex system has made it not only impractical but illegal to live in harmony with Earth, so draw the line where you feel comfortable and chive on.
Tamboura is not merely a canoe, and she is even not merely a sculpture. She is art. Not decoration, but High Art. In that she is created to encourage thought. Thought about what society might have created had we developed without creating chemicals. Thought about what our race is faced with after creating an economy which is poisoning a closed loop environment faster than it can purify itself, an economy that will collapse it if does not continue to exponentially expand. And no, new tech ain’t gonna save us: at best it kicks the can as it invariably makes things worse in a weirder way.
So within her beauty, within her complexity and uniqueness, I made Tamboura all natural. Organic. Biodegradable. She’ll last proverbally forever as long as she’s kept up. But when she’s not, she’ll dissipate into elements which can be eaten.
Glues are the hardest to get around. There are plenty of natural, biodegradable glues that have been in use by humans for 1000s of years. They need their own books to discuss, and while wood is better for structure than anything humans have invented besides carbon fiber, natural glues don’t work NEAR so good as PVA or epoxy, or even resorcinol. So I tied Tamboura together.
Sealing out water is the next hardest requirement of a watercraft to achieve naturally. My first canoe I used a substance I call WaxLac. A 50/50 blend of Beeswax and Shellac. I came up with the idea during searches for all natural waterproof substances, when I read a thread of wilderness guides who armor their wood-canvas canoe bottoms with Shellac. They said the waxy stuff doesn’t blush in contact with water like the dewaxed does, and is more flexible. I was (and am) eventually after an all natural version of functionally Royalex. Waxy shellac seems to work OK, but would waxier shellac work even better? I melted Beeswax and Shellac together, and painted it into the canvas hide of Matis1.
It worked extremely well. It not only kept the water out, it acted like a freshly waxed surfboard. Slime didn’t even stick to it in nasty polluted (standard!) rivers like they do to my GRP and Royalex canoes. And I could slide over rocks and logs, watch a dent in Matis1’s hull drag fore to aft, and later see not the slightest damage done. So WaxLac is what I did again on Tamboura.
Approaching the actual build, what concerned me was her canvas skin. I had not yet read any other SoF canoes using canvas. Tamboura may be structurally designed using principals going back 1000yrs, but the scantlings are from designs by Platt Monford and Hilary Russel. Those boats use nylon and polyester skins filled with a selection of synthetic sealers. I am not sure if those chemical conglomerations have more bodily strength and rigidity than Cotton canvas and WaxLac? And, too, shellac will stick snot to a doorknob. What if the WaxLax glues the canvas to the stringers? It might transfer impact to thin stringers and ribs. I wanted more structure, and certain separation.
During my continued and constant research into how humans made boats before humans made chemicals, I came across a Vietnamese technique of finely woven bamboo baskets sealed with tar. And had a flash. Cane could be used between the cotton and the frame!!!
So I soaked some and laid it across the full size mold to dry to shape.
Slid it under Tamboura’s frame...
….sewed it on….
…then sewed canvas to the cane.
This seamed the cane along it’s entire edge. I left enough canvas to wrap around the cane and drop to the seam (which keeps the cane from unraveling) then tuck back up to the top, which keeps the canvas from unraveling. Then I whip stitched the wrap to hold it all in place.
In order to get the stiff skin snug to the frame while positioning the Skinslats, I suspended Tamboura by her skin.
While painting in the WaxLac.
And then, of course, you know, lashed on the out/rubrails. Apparently not a particularly photogenic step, because I did not take the picture.
For more on Tamboura's build process, please proceed to page 5. Wherein you will see sorta completed photos, and completed photos.