Day 9

Started this morning sewing in the coaming. Pretty simple job but you have to be careful trimming the fabric. To short and there is nothing to sew, to long and the edge will show under the coaming. I almost trimmed it to short in one place but it turned out OK.Next I started doing the whip stitch down the rear deck before I shrank the skin. I typically do this afterwards and I must admit the results have me concerned!  The more I sewed the worse it looked. This photo exaggerates it but it did look bad!

I stopped sewing and grabbed the iron and started shrinking to see what I had. As you can see it started to look much better.

So I moved on to the deck. Finished everything up an d it’s ready to start putting on the color in the morning. It will take most of the week to get the painting done since I am going to two tone it. So stay tuned!

 

Day 8

Started skinning yesterday.

I find that clamping the skin in place very important and leads to a better looking job. Your not fighting with the fabric and it keeps it straight on the boat. I used a clamp down the center line on the deck beam this time. I don’t normally do that but I will in the future. It made keeping the fabric snug on the frame easier.

This is where I left it. Very  happy with the way it looks. There are more wrinkles in the end than I like but it’s hard not to have a few with a long pointed end. Just a lot of fabric your trying to stretch and sew. If I had seen these I could worked some of it out. But it’s not a problem, The skin will shrink so much lengthwise they will pull right out.

It is ready for the coaming but I am not finished with it. Since it will be painted black it’s taking a lot of work to make it look good. Black shows EVERY flaw in it.  So I am still sanding and priming. Hoping to get it done today and maybe tomorrow I can finish up the sewing.

Mean time I will finish some night stands I am building for Christmas present.