Gabriel asked, RE: using a hand drill fitted with a wire brush to carve minicell foam: <<Think it will work on the drill press / securing the hand drill so you can handhold the foam?>> Sure, that should work well. What I've done when carving seats is secure the minicell to an oversized piece of scrap wood - I think cardboard would also do - with a few dabs of hotmelt glue. A few dabs of contact cement would also work. Then I can kneel on the scrap wood, which holds the minicell in place as I "carve". When I do hip braces I just rough cut them with a bread knife or hacksaw blade, use the broken Sureform to round them off a bit, and sand with dragon skin or 60 grit to smooth. I do carve the knee braces a bit; they're just 1/4 inch thick laterally, with prominent wedge shape medially (they're formed from two pieces of foam) so my knees can grip them without much danger of slipping off, and yet there's a little paddling for the knees if/when they contact the undersurface of the deck. On one boat I covered the seat with black loudspeaker cloth as recommended some time ago in Atlantic Coastal Kayaker, but I didn't like that covering. I actually like the slightly rough surface for the seat, I haven't had trouble with abrasion spoiling the seat, and the speaker cloth tended to work loose after a while. Maybe I didn't use enough adhesive on it, and on the seat. With deep compound curves, the speaker cloth is devilish hard to fit into the seat's concavity. Finally - I'd like to claim the idea of using a hand-held drill and wire brush as my own, but it isn't my own. A paddling acquaintance named Pat Crosscombe told me about it. I agree - it's a great idea. - Bill Hansen *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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