Kayak Build, Day 2

Now that the glue has dried, I've cut the ends to shape. The bow is cut at a 25 degree angle and the stern at 30 degrees, that makes the bow a little more pointy than the stern. That's probably why they call it the pointy end. It's already starting to look boat-shaped.



I trimmed the excess dowel off using a tenon saw. A Japanese pull saw might have been better as it would have allowed me to get in closer and I wouldn't have had to worry about hitting the risers with the spine of the blade. That said, it turned out okay and once the risers were planed using an electric planer it looked quite good, as you can see below. I also planed the side of the risers, since they were slightly thicker than the gunwales.



Next step is cutting the rib mortises, all 44 of them. My original intention was to just cut them all by hand using a 1/4" chisel. Unfortunately, the chisel I bought on eBay hasn't arrived yet, so I figured I'd drill the holes first using the 6mm brad point bit that I'm using for the dowel holes. After drilling about half of them, I decided it'd be a bit quicker if I marked out where the holes were to go using a nail first. Trying to line the drill up with the centre of the mortise is awkward when the bit is obscuring your view of the markings, especially if you marked out using a mortise gauge like I did. A brad awl would have been easier on my hands, but the nail worked fine.

I picked the best holes I could find to photograph my drilling, just to make it look like I'm a better craftsman than I really am. I must say, my woodworking skills are really improving as I progress.



So, 132 holes later, all I need to do now is clean them up when my 1/4" chisel arrives. I tidied them up a bit lengthways using a 3/4" chisel. The mortises are actually 1" long, but I decided not to use the 1" chisel, since my marking wasn't perfect and not all of them were the full 1". The ribs will only be 3/4" wide anyway, the reason for making the mortises longer is to give you a bit of room to get the ribs in when you're fitting them.



The last step for today was to mark out the ends where they need to be chamfered. Once the nails are removed and the deck beams are fitted the ends need to fit together flush, so the area inside the 'V' in the picture below will be removed using a plane.



All up, I spent two hours working on it today. Yesterday I spent four hours. A common question is, how long does it take to build a kayak, so I'm trying to keep tabs on how much time I spend each day. I also need to make sure I don't spend too much time on it, since I'm studying part-time for a science degree and I need to make sure I devote enough time for that.

Hopefully, my chisel will arrive tomorrow and I'll be able to continue. Oh, and I got onto my timber supplier, they were very apologetic and they're cutting the other two pieces for me today.