Kayak Build, Day 17

Although I didn't do a whole lot to the kayak today, what little I did do made a hell of a difference to its appearance.

If you compare the next picture to the first one of yesterday's post, you can see what a coat of linseed oil can do to timber. It really shows most in the cedar.



Wolfgang Brink says in his instructable, that it seems a shame to cover it all up with a skin once you get to this stage, and I can see what he means now. I can understand why some builders don't dye the skin of their kayaks, instead leaving them to show the colours of the timber through the fabric.



One of the things that came up quite well with a coat of oil was the aft breast hook. I'm actually quite proud of the way it looks, so proud I photographed it more than once.





Once the skin is on and covered in Corey's Goop, the last job will be to add the deck lines. While the oil was drying today, I figured I'd get started on the toggles that will form part of the deck lines. These are made from a piece of left over cedar from one of the chines, carefully carved out using a 1" chisel, then oiled. It doesn't look much now, but it should look great once it's installed on the boat. There'll be four of these in total, two in front of the cockpit and two behind. They'll allow me to slide my paddle in under them and use it as an outrigger when I squeeze myself into the boat, or I can use them to carry an extra paddle.



Below is an idea of how the seat will look once it's sewn in place. I'm thinking of making some kind of back band with some of the leather so that I'm not leaning against the deck beam. I just need to work out how I'm going to do it.

The only other thing to do is to varnish that coaming. It looks kind of out of place at the moment in its raw form.



I reckon I spent about two and a half hours on it today, some of which was just doing little touches, like wiping off excess oil, or fiddling around with the leather for the seat. That takes me to 62 hours total.