Again, I know there’d be at least unexpressed questions: The paddle is an attempt to make a super light/strong/stiff, again 100% natural, paddle from the smaller trees humanity now has available to them. I’d call it a resounding success, but that is a subject for a later, more detailed and explicit DIY.

12ft, 29in beam, 40lb.

1500 employee hours (ie: things a shop would have to pay an employee for, like cleaning the shop and sharpening tools, making jigs, or remaking parts that broke), or 500 shop hours (only includes time ethically billable to a customer (which means only construction time on elements included in final product done like a practiced pro (meaning, my second try at the part))) . 

The WaxLac didn’t particularly work in this application. Within a few months of nothing but shop life, Tamboura began to craze. This never happened on Matis1, through two years of unclimate controlled garage life, and reasonably steady use including some fairly long trips. My first thought was Tamboura’s frame is more flexible than Matis1’s. So I removed her outer skin and redid it.

Now though, I suspect the issue was I applied Matis1’s WaxLac in the summer, in a dark roofed metal skinned shop that is 10-15deg hotter than the outside temperature (in the summer I work in the sun for relief from the heat) and Tamboura’s was applied in January. Therefore the WaxLac did not soak into Tamboura’s hide, but instead built up to a thick layer on the outside.  I recommend WaxLac to anyone else and intend to use again on next all-natural canoe build.

I tested six coats of Linseed Oil on a scrap of canvas. Pushed the scrap cloth halfway into a bowl and filled the canvas with water. After three days no water had leaked through, and the bottom of the fabric was still dry.

Between then and working on the fabric, I learned Linseed Oil rots canvas. Maybe over 100s of years? But I turned to Tung Oil anyway. Dyed 5 yards of organic 10oz canvas with Walnut husks, and laid it on the (now complete) monocoque form. Then painted in seven coats of Tung oil and (true Pine) turpentine, mixed with Pine Tar in the second through fifth applications.

The canvas was dyed in a metal barrel. Which reacted with the fabric and created a tri-color mottled texture. It looks like Elephant hide.

I went through the steps of applying the outer canvas again. I wish I’d by that point read the books on how Wood/Canvas skins are stretched that I have now, but it worked.

Oh. This time I thought the lashing of out/rubrails was worth taking a picture of. Here Tamboura is suspended by her SkinSlats.