Kayak Build, Day 4

I spent some more time on the kayak last night after work while there was nothing on TV. I drilled and pegged both ends so that the glue would be dry if I had time to work on it today.



After dropping Donna off at work I went to Bunnings and bought some more timber for the deck beams. I got two pieces of 42mm x 19mm Tasmanian Oak and a 90mm x 90mm piece of pine for deck beams 5 and 6 which are raised above the height of the gunwales and so need to be thicker. Something 90mm x 36mm would have been better but they didn't have anything suitable, so I figured I could rip this down to size with the circular saw. More about that later.

After picking up my stepdaughter from the airport, I finally got around to picking up the two missing pieces of cedar from the other day, then picked up Donna from work. I finally got to work on the boat around 4:15 once I'd fed the birds. It was supposed to be my turn to cook dinner tonight, looks like I'm down for two nights running in the kitchen now.

The easiest and quickest part of the job today was trimming and sanding the dowels I'd put in last night.



Then came the fiddly bits, measuring out and fitting the deck beams. This is where I managed to cut myself with a chisel trying to tidy up the end of one of the beams. I really should have left a drop of blood on the boat to christen it, but didn't think of it until I'd put the Bandaid on.



After that, I decided to use the circular saw to cut the beams. At least I knew the cuts would always be the right angle and wouldn't need tidying up as much.

So now the boat looks like a funny shaped ladder, although I wouldn't be climbing it just yet. Not only would it fall over, but the deck beams are only nailed in at the moment. Once they're all fitted I'll tighten everything up with windlasses, then peg them all.



At least it looks straight, I'm happy with that. You can see the gaps at the ends of the deck beams, they'll close up once every thing is pulled tight, I hope. The picture below is looking from the back of the boat.



Tomorrow's job will be to shape deck beams 5 and 6. Deck beam 6 is known as the masik, it's used as a knee brace, so it has to be the right height and shape so it doesn't hurt my legs, or get in the way when I'm trying to get in and out of the kayak. If you make the kayak right, you pretty much wear it like a pair of trousers. I don't want it to be one of those pairs of trousers where you have to lay on your back to do up the zip, nor do I want it to be a pair that falls down around your ankles every time you reach up for something.

The pic below shows the last two deck beams. Beam 6 is marked ready for me to cut it tomorrow. Once they're both cut and nailed in, then I can tighten everything up and start pegging. Then the whole thing gets turned upside down and the keel gets fitted. That'll probably be a job for Sunday or Monday, since we're doing a boat license course all day Saturday. No, you don't need a license to paddle a kayak here, we're getting powerboat licenses.



As I said earlier, I figured ripping a 1.2m length of 90mm x 90mm timber would be a cinch with a circular saw. I just put the thing on the saw that keeps the blade an even distance from the edge (can't remember what it's called) and it'll do a nice straight cut. Because the wood is so thick, I'd have to cut one side, then turn it over and do the other side. Next time I do it I'll mark a line along the wood and cut along that instead, because things didn't work out as planned. To make matters worse, I thought that if I did the same on the other side, it'd come out okay anyway. It didn't, the cuts didn't join up properly, as you can see from the last picture.



The other end wasn't as bad, so that's where I cut the material for the two beams. Once I've planed them you wouldn't know I'd stuffed up.

Including the drilling and pegging I did last night, that's another four hours on the job. That's thirteen and a half total. So far I've spent around $150 on materials.