> Supposedly, by using three layers of paper bag type paper with shelac
> coating/binder you can produce a very strong yet flexible covering.

I bought a can of 3 pound cut shellac and tried this with newspaper about 2 yearas ago. It didn't work. The shellac did not glue the pages together very well. They delaminated in my hand with just slight motion. I don't believe that shellac would be a good adhesive for holding paper together. If the old boat was made with a hull constructed of three layers of seamless paper there is a chance that the shellac might sufficiently waterproof the layers, and maybe serve as a weak bond between them, but with smaller sheets, this is no good.

Perhaps in the old days they had better shellac, or used a grade that had higher solids content. ( 5 pound cut, or higher)

If you are interested in trying to use some big, strong paper, I suggest you contact a photography or art supply store for `photo background paper` Savage is one of the leading suppliers of this. It is as thick ( or thicker) as grocery store bags ( kraft paper) and much thicker than butcher paper. The material is available in rolls 12 yards long ( 36 feet) and in widths of either 54 inches or 108 inches. The small rolls should be under $30 and the big ones are about $45 to $60. They are available in MANY colors, so you won't have to paint the thing if you get clear shellac. Otherwise, figure that the orange shellac will change colors a bit.

> I'm currently contemplating building another boat (this will me my third
> kayak) and was just wondering if there was anybody out there who could
> maybe describe the process, pros, cons, of this method. How long will it
> last? is it a nice finish?

I would not consider this to be something of heirloom quality, or suitable for archival preservation. If it lasts a week or two you should be happy. Take lots of pictures and you'll be able to show them off in taverns for years. (Probably be great for winning drinks on bar bets after some whitewater slalom event.) The best comparison between a paper boat and anything else would probably be to look at Mark Kanzlers pictures from the cardboard regatta. There are similar `boat' contests held around the world. Since waterproofing the materials is frequently an optional step at these things, few paper boats would last a mile.

> or does is just make the boat look like a 17
> foot pinata

Sounds to me like a pretty accurate description.

Now that I have trashed the idea, let me also point out that I am committed to building a boat out of newspapers. At the moment I have a frame from an 11.5 foot skin on frame design, which is not covered. I wanted to try covering it with the shellacked newspapers, but after my first trial I was very disappointed. My next thoughts are to go with a papermache type covering.

I have a few options here. The biggest options revolve around the glue used in making the papermache and the size of the paper used. I want full sheets from the newspaper, at least on the outer and innermost layers. If I need to make the hull thicker I can stuff it with as many layers of strips of newsprint as I need. Since varnish takes too long to dry, and shellac is not very good, I have been considering using epoxy resin, or polyester resin instead. I have some epoxy, and from drips that have gathered on newspapers I know it works well for bonding them. To make a thick eough hull I will probably need 3 or 4 gallons, though, and that is a lot of money. So, I bought a gallon of polyester (about $13 on sale) and I`m waiting until I have enough time to test it.

The last `adhesive' is a wheat flour based one: Either wallpaper paste, or a home made flour paste. This is the basic stuff of paper mache.

I covered the wood frame with saran wrap so that whatever I use won't stick to the frame and wreck it for a more dignified project. the idea is to use a paint roller to cover one side of a newspaper page with resin, and apply that to the saran-covered frame. After putting a dozen pages on, the frame sould be pretty well coated with single layer of paper. I then use the roller to paint another coat of resin on these pages, and apply more layers of paper, which are then covered with resin, which is then covered with more paper, and so on.

I am hoping that after putting on 4 or five layers of paper., and letting the resin set up, I can come back to this and carefully cut through the paper hull layer with a utility knife. by spliting the deck of the bow section I hope to be able to flex this material enough to be able to release the trapped wood frame, and also to peel off the saran from the interior. After that I plan to use more strips of resin coated paper as tape to cover this slit. Then, I'll just keep on building up layers of plastic resin and paper until the hull seems strong enough to hold me.

Forget engineering standards, and don't hold me to tests. This is strictly a `seat of the pants' approach. I haven`t the slightest idea of how strong this is going to be. (Some one reading this is probably going to prepare test panels and tell me this data, I just know it, I do.)

As I understand it, `fiberglass' is a composite of glass fibers in plastic resin. I'm looking at a material made of cellulose fibers in a plastic resin.

If I go with the wheat flour paste, then I'll build up a layer of paper strips about 1/4 inch thick, as evenly as possible, over the entire hull. Again, I'll stop after a few layers and try to free the wood frame at some point where it looks like this paper covering is strong enough to take the flexing, but still flexible to permit this. When the strips are all on, and the hull has hardened a bit in the sun, I'll sand it gently to reduce the number of ridges, and put on my final, outside layer of full sheets of newspaper pages. That will be allowed to dry. Of course all of this will deteriorate if it gets wet, so I'll cover it, in the conventional fashion, with several layers of thin fiberglass fabric and epoxy resin. 'Glassing the inside will be a neat trick, or a tremendously messy experience. I'm giving some thought to cutting the deck off so I can glass the interior, and then gluing the deck back on.

In this case, the fiberglass is obviously going to be a major structural element. I would prefer not to use it for this project, but if I have to, then I do. another thought would be to build up the boat with the wheat paste based papermache, and then cover that with several layers of polyester- or epoxy resin-saturated newspaper. another thought is that maybe the epoxy resin would soak in and penetrate several layers of the paper mache. I haven`t tried any of these things yet to find out which will work, though.

That is about where I am with my thinking on this project. Hope some of these ideas are of interest.

Paul Jacobson