I thought I was all set with my process, but my boat partner confused me today.
When last I raised this issue, it seemed there was a pretty good majority in favor of putting the canvas on dry, and then wetting it with boiling water before painting while wet with oil paint that was thinned like water.
My boat partner tells me the way to do it is to wet the hell out of the canvas before stretching and stapling. He says making the canvas wet allows it to stretch more than when it is dry, so that you get extra stretch before you staple the canvas down and then you get shrinkage when the canvas dries.
A Lightning friend used ratchet straps to stretch his canvas prior to stapling. I am going to try that method because my old hands and arms could use all of the help they can get.
By the way, I recently learned that Tom Allen, who built many a fast Lightning, used to install the canvas on his Lightnings back in the day while a second coat of paint on the deck was wet. I guess that method worked just fine but I don't like the idea of having to rush like that.
I ran across some discussion of installing the canvas wet, so I guess it isn't a new idea. But I don't know if it is a better idea for my purposes.
Here is a picture of the Lightning with the 1st coat of primer.
DSCN1730.jpg.
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