Hadn't heard from Dawne lately.....

[doe4rae]

I bought a wood burning tool to put the HIN on the gunnel as you did. ...but hadn't thought about if it would be dark enough, so adding ink and covering with epoxy might be a good idea. However, as I am reading the South Dakota hand book on boating laws, I ran across a paragraph that says "Non motorized vessels that are more than 12 feet but are 18 feet or less in length are not required to display the boat number but must display the validation decals."

I think I will look into this a little more closely before I go marking the HIN in a conspicuious location. I know for a fact that the Osage canoes I sold did not have their HIN in a readily visible location. I had to search forever to find it when I registered them!

[Patricks Dad]

I had the HIN engraved in a small brass plates and epoxied one to the unders side of the outwale (stern starboard side) The other one I epoxied to the underside of the front deck.

[Patricks Dad]

oh, one other comment on those ugly stickers that you have to put on the bow (in IL you have to have 1 on each side - in WI, they're not required). I put those ugly stickers on a thin plastic layer that sticks to the canoe so it can be easily removed. You can buy the thin plastic at hardware stores. It is made to allow you to remove stickers from your auto-windows easily (like those yearly stickers you buy for state parks or city stickers). You can remove them easily and replace with the next year's sticker.

One other tip I learned (but not recommending here) is to put a thin layer of vasoline on the sticker so it will cling but not adhere.

[Jim Dodd]

Hi Dawn
I would'nt go the woodburning route ! It will blacken and maybe burn the epoxy !
We used a magic marker, actually a "Sharpy" to make marks on a friends hull. and the epoxy did'nt bother it. He used West System epoxy. Even if the epoxy degraded the marker, you could easily scrape it off without harming the hull.
A brass name plate would work also.
Good Luck!
Jim

[doe4rae]

I was confused earlier. The HIN is required but the "boat number" is something else entirely that is given to you after you have registered your boat. I did burn the smaller -- and less conspicuious -- HIN into my outwale on the underside. I guess its ok but I wish that is all I had to do. I had only sealed the bare wood and not varnished it yet, so that will work for now. Not loving the idea of the screws for a brass plate OR writing on the boat with a sharpy. Maybe I can get away with a vinyl decal. Or I can try and if the police officer won't sign off on it then I'll have to bite the bullet.

Thanks for the tip Randy... I didn't know such a thing existed, so I will definately go see if I can find one of those.

[Sherm]

......Great Job,, after starting this post I went back and checked your album,
I could see that every thing was going well....after completeing my canoe, after being
on the water a couple of times; I found myself "day-dreaming" about building another....

[Larry in Champaign]

Here are a couple of photos of what I did for the HIN.



Jig pressing in letter.



Letters darkened with roller ball pin. Sorry, but no photos of the epoxied and varnished gunwale.

[Jim Dodd]

Nice job Larry ! I like the look !

Dawne are you talking about the 3 or 4in letters ! Do you also have to put "OR" on back for capacity ? Here in Iowa, the "OR" stands for Owner Responsiblity.

I've had really good luck with a sign shop, making Vinyl numbers. They hold up real well and they can style them, but just a little.
Good Luck
Jim

[doe4rae]

Larry, that looks really good! It would be easiest to put the HIN on my outwale (starboard, stern) however I think the guidelines for SD say it has to be 2 inches below? And Jim we don't have to put "OR" or the registration numbers if the boat is under 18 feet. If the boat is OVER 18 feet then the registration numbers have to be on both sides of the bow 3" high!! (In addition to the HIN in two locations and your validation stickers. And the boats carrying capacity! Good grief. Now I know not to ever build a boat over 18 feet long! I put one HIN on the underside of the outwale. I am stalling on the other one because if I can get away with putting it on the outwale or as a vinyl decal I will. I don't want to write on, burn, screw holes through, or otherwise deface the actual hull unless it comes to that.

[Patricks Dad]

I think the rule is that the HIN must be "within" 2" of the gunwale (rather than 2" down from the gunwale)

Snipped from http://www.boatsafe.com/nauticalknowhow/hin.htm

On boats without transoms or on boats on which it would be impractical to the transom, the HIN must be affixed to the starboard outboard side of the hull, aft within one foot of the stern and within two inches of the top of hull side, gunwale, or hull/deck joint, whichever is lowest.

I think the strict interpretation would suggest that I can't be on the actual bottom side of the gunwale (but rather on the hull itself). My interpretation is that the underside of the gunwale is fine (I made sure that the bottom edge of the brass plate was in contact with the hull itself so strictly speaking it's "on the hull" even though most of the back surface is affixed to the gunwale. I'm confident that this meets the spirt of the law.

This is a US coast guard defined rule (I think). Each state appears to simply adopt the US rule but have their own rules for the big ugly stickers...

[doe4rae]

... then I believe that will be the way I will approach it..... in keeping with "the spirit of the law". Thanks for saving my hull! lol
:twisted evil

[knehdn]

Wow... I guess we're a lot less stringent with regards to boat registrations here in Ontario. Only boats which are powered by a motor greater than 10hp. need to be registered, Canoes and such are exempt.

[doe4rae]

Well... I couldn't wait any longer! The forcast is for rain all weekend and last night was perfect so I took the canoe out for the first time. I will be trying to put a picture over on the "launchings" page but I wasn't sure if it would be seen over there so I'm making a note here as well.

I couldn't be happier. I've paddled a lot of canoes and wasn't sure that one I built myself could possilby handle better than all the rest but it paddles like a dream!!!

Check out the new pictures! And THANK YOU in huge amounts to everyone here that helped me through some of the rocky stages of building! You are an inspiration and great source of knowledge!

Dawne
and here's a bit of video from the other night!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGnWYnNj3mk

http://picasaweb.google.com/olson.dawne ... 6277496994

[Glen Smith]

Truly Superb!!!

[Patricks Dad]

Fantastic! You are no doubt very proud!