Kayak Build, Day 1

I picked up some of the timber I needed today, so the building has started. Last Friday I ordered enough timber for the gunwales, keelson, stem and stern risers, stem and stern boards and hull stringers. It wasn't until I got home and undid the bundle that I realised I'd been short-changed two pieces of timber, the pieces for the hull stringers. I rang the suppliers and left a message, but they haven't got back to me yet.

I have enough there to get started though. I also picked up six metres of 6mm dowel and a few other little things I'll need for the build like drill bits, builder's twine for lashing and a rat-tail file.

The timber isn't the best quality, it's not really what I'd class as quarter sawn and there was a knot at one end of one of the gunwale pieces, but it's good enough for the job and I only had to cut about 20cm off one end to get rid of the knot. That's not going to make much difference to the end product.

I've temporarily nailed both pieces together with 40mm bullet head nails for the marking out, etc. The nails will be removed once the mortises are cut.



Below are the stem and stern risers, marked and ready to be cut. They should really have been about a half inch wider than they are, but I miscalculated when I converted to metric. It just means there won't be quite as much shear on the ends. The green box underneath is the steam-box for bending the ribs. I made that on the weekend from a piece of half inch ply we just happened to have lying around in the shed.



I cut the two pieces using a circular saw. It's not the best way to cut them, the end result is a bit rough, but it works and I'd probably do it the same way next time. I had to clamp the pieces to a sawing horse at one end, cut half way, then turn it around and cut from the other end. The hardest part was the fact that the blade guard on the saw catches on the end of the wood, so you have to manually lift it. It's awkward, but as I said, it works.

Once the pieces were cut I clamped them to the gunwales and started drilling and pegging. I used a 6mm brad point bit to drill the holes, it doesn't move around as much as a twist drill when you start the hole. As the bit is 6mm and so is the dowel, there's a little bit of play so I've had to glue the dowels in place.



The instructable I'm following says to put four dowels in the bow risers and three in the stern one. If you look closely at the picture below you can see five in the bow risers. That's because I didn't drill the first holes deep enough for the dowels to go through the risers into the gunwales. I didn't notice until after I'd got to my third set of dowels and I couldn't get them out again, so I just added another set.



No mistakes with the stern riser, probably because I knew what I was doing by then.



I'll leave the glue to dry overnight. Tomorrow I'll trim off the excess dowelling, cut the angles on the ends of the gunwales and do a bit of planing. As you can see in the last three photos, the risers are very slightly thicker than the gunwales, so I'll have to tidy them up as well.