Kayak Build, Day 16

Lots of little jobs on the kayak today mean the frame is finally finished.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I needed to put a couple of blocks under the coaming so that it would fit. The one in the picture below is the aft one, behind the cockpit. Because it's doubled the surface area of that deck beam, it makes it a bit more comfortable when I lean on it too. Although, I'll probably put some kind of padding there anyway. I'm still working out the fine details as far as the seating arrangements are concerned.



I also fitted the aft breast hook and did a much better job of it than I did with the forward one. The ribs that needed lashing have all been lashed and everything has been sanded. The coaming has been sanded and the lacing holes drilled, all 44 of them. That'll need to be varnished, otherwise water will soak into the end grain and probably buckle it. I've also pre-drilled the holes for the deck lines.

All that's left now is to give the whole thing a coat of linseed oil, then put the skin on when it arrives. Oh, and fit the seat, but I can't do that till the needles and sinew arrive with the skin.

If you're wondering why the outdoor shots are taken with the boat on sawing horses instead of laying on the ground, I couldn't find a chook poo free spot to put it.



Here's the obligatory inside-the-hull shot. I'll probably do another one once the skin is on. In fact, once the frame is oiled I'll probably dig out my studio flashes and take some high quality pictures of the whole thing.









I think I spent about 4 hours on the job today, taking the total to 59 1/2. I'll definitely be taking longer than 60 hours overall, but I reckon 60 hours is a good average. I know of people that have bent all their ribs in under an hour, it took me all week.

Kayak Build, Day 15

Bit of a varied day today, so I thought I'd show you something different to the usual kayak building photos. We have a passion-fruit vine growing around our vegetable garden. The local Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos usually eat seeds, but they're pretty partial to passion-fruit, so they have a habit of stealing ours.

The bush behind with the pink flowers is a Grevillea. The lorikeets we look after love them, and apparently they're rather nice dunked in a cup of tea too, but I haven't tried it yet.



Anyway, back to the job at hand. I got up early today and visited Bunnings after dropping Donna off at work. I bought a 1200mm x 600mm piece of 12mm plywood to make a coaming. The coaming is basically two rings glued together, one bigger than the other, to attach a skirt. It wouldn't have hurt to add a third ring for more depth, and I'll probably do that for the coaming on Donna's kayak, but it'll do. The only problem I found was that there wasn't enough clearance between the coaming and the deck stringers, so I'll need to add a couple of, for want of a better word, bits of wood, to raise the coaming up. It fits perfectly between the stringers, but that will cause problems when it comes time to skin the boat, if I don't add the bits of wood.

I glued the two pieces of coaming together just before heading off to work this afternoon. It's only sitting in place for the benefit of the camera, and my step-daughter and her hubby who came over for dinner tonight. I know it's not traditional, but jigsawing plywood is so much easier than bending oak. Another layer of ply would have been good, but I'm a cheapskate, so an inch thick coaming will do the job. When it comes right down to it, it's only there to hold a skirt.



Yes, the coaming looks wonky in the next picture, but that's not how it'll be fitted eventually. It's pretty much sitting there for somewhere to dry.



I did a bit more lashing tonight, six more ribs to lash and another breast hook to fit. then the frame will be right to skin. The coaming needs sealing with some marine type varnish, then drilling for when the skin is fitted. I'll oil the frame as well.

The leather turned up today for the deck lines. The only thing I'm waiting for now is the nylon for the skin, which is coming from the states.

I reckon I only spent about 2 hours on the job today, I had so many interruptions, it's hard to say for sure, but 2 hours takes the total to 55 1/2.

A paddling day

I didn't do much on the kayak today, just drilled a few holes so I could lash some of the ribs where I'm not happy with how they're sitting in the mortises.

I tried bending the outer ring of the coaming today and it broke right where the main ring broke, probably because of the tight bend there. So I'm going to try something else with the coaming, instead of stressing out about trying to bend it. I'm going to get some 1/2" marine ply and make a laminated coaming instead. I'm a lot better at wielding a jigsaw than I am at bending wood. Also, I'll be building Donna's kayak to a Tom Yost design and the coamings on Tom's kayaks are mostly plywood.

It wasn't a wasted day today though, since we got the double kayak out and went for a paddle. It was Donna's first chance to try out the Greenland paddle. The one I made her is a bit too thick in the handle, so I need to trim that down a bit. The only complaint Donna had was that she ended up a lot wetter than she usually does with the old Euro paddle. She also got to try out a Werner carbon fibre paddle for a few minutes, as we tagged along with Katrina and Tony from Redlands Kayak Tours. Tony's asked me if I want to help out with a big tour they have happening on the 19th, so hopefully I'll have the Greenlander launched by then. If not, I'll be doing it in the Nantucket.

Sorry there's no piccies today, but the only ones I took were of people on the tour since Tony forgot to put a memory card in his camera.

Kayak Build, Day 14

It was a bit of a relaxed building day today. I did some lashing, took a break, did some more lashing, chatted to Donna, who was sitting in the sun watching me work.

The chines are now in place. My thumbs were aching at the end of it, mainly from holding the lacing against the chines to keep tension on it. I reckon you could play a tune on the lacing. Once the skin is on, you could accompany yourself, playing percussion.

Once I'd taken a couple of pictures out in the yard I tried the boat on for size. It's a tight fit. Because of where the ribs are in the cockpit, it tends to force my bum a bit further back than I'd like, so my feet don't reach deck beam three properly. Deck beam three is the footrest. That may change once I fit the seat, but if it doesn't I have plenty of offcuts of timber to fashion another footrest.





Once the outdoor pics were taken, I fitted the forward deck stringers. They could do with a couple of extra pegs in each one, as could the rear stringers, but they don't really need it.



I also fitted the forward breast hook, which involved making lots of cuts with a tenon saw then knocking them out with a hammer and cleaning up with a 1" chisel. I did a pretty good job of that part. It's a pity I wasn't as good at actually fitting the breast hook.



As you can see from this picture, it's a bit wonky. When I do the aft one I'll cut it a bit too big, then I can trim it down to size.



That's the frame almost done. Just the aft breast hook to do and the coaming. I took the coaming off the form today and it went a funny shape due to those two kinks I mentioned previously. Once the outer ring is fitted though it'll fix that up. It'll be a bit like laminating.

I weighed the frame today too. A lot of people have said to me, it must be heavy with all that wood. It weighs 10kg. The skin shouldn't weigh more than about 2kg, so it's still going to be a boat I can put up on the car roof rack with one hand.

Another three hours today, taking the total to 53 1/2 hrs.

Kayak Build, Day 13

The ribs are finished. I'm finally past the hardest and most time consuming part of the whole project. Am I happy? Ooh yeah!

As soon as I finished lashing the ribs I took the whole thing out of the shed and took a heap of pictures. I also took a couple of pictures on my mobile so I could show my workmates how it's going.



As you can see, there's not a lot left to do to finish the frame. The forward hull stringers need to be fitted. They're already cut to size, so it'll probably be a ten minute job there. The breast hooks will take longer, since they need to be shaped just right. Then there's the coaming. I still need to bend the outer ring and fit it to the part of the coaming I've already bent.







Before finishing the deck though, I need to fit the chines. They've been cut to size and I've lashed the forward end. They're clamped into place, so now all I need to do is lash them to the ribs and that'll be the hull finished.





Another three and a half hours spent today, taking the total to 50 1/2. If the nylon for the skin arrives early next week, it could be launched next weekend. Fingers crossed.

Kayak Build, Day 12

No work this evening, so I spent quite a bit of time on the boat. I still haven't finished the ribs, but the end is in sight.

As you can see below, there is still a bit of frustration, some of the ribs ended up in the backyard.



That rib above did end up getting used though. I knew some of the ribs toward the bow were never going to get bent properly without breaking, so I decided to use some of the ribs that had already broken, but had a bit of a bend in them. Ribs 2, 3, 4 and 5 have all been fitted as two halves and lashed to the keelson to keep them in place.



Some of the ribs have turned out really well, especially toward the middle of the boat, where they're long and the bends are nice and gradual. However, once they're in place there's a lot of gaps between some of them and the keelson, so I've done a lot of shimming.

I've temporarily fitted the hull stringers, or chines if you prefer. That gives me a better idea of how the finished boat will look and where I need to make adjustments. There is going to be a lot of shimming on the chines as well, otherwise the finished boat might end up paddling in circles.







You can see in the next to photos that there are a couple of ribs that are very asymmetrical and that's where I'll need to add shims to make sure the chines themselves are symmetrical. I must admit though, it is starting to look pretty good. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Looking at some of the crooked ribs got me thinking about a name for the boat. I tried a few different ideas in Google Translator, translating from English into either Icelandic, or Russian. They didn't have Greenlandic, or what every you'd call their language. Since the boat should look pretty good with the skin on, and you won't be able to see the rough bits, I put "skin deep" into translator and it came up with неглубоко, pronounced nyergubaka. If you translate it back to English it means shallow, which also suits the kayak, since it has such a shallow draft. I'll have to see how I go at painting it on the back of the coaming.





Only three more ribs to go. Hopefully they'll get fitted tomorrow, then I can fit the chines and that'll be the hull finished. Then I can turn the boat over and fit the breast hooks and forward deck stringers. I fitted the aft stringers today. Since the aft stringers get sat on when you enter the boat, I figured I'd better make sure they're the right distance apart. So I made sure the neighbours couldn't see me, then measured the distance from butt cheek to butt cheek. You can just see the stringers in the photo above. Yes, I have a small bum.

I'll be using a piece of leather for a seat and that'll be lashed to the two ribs that are in that part of the cockpit. The piece I bought on eBay last week for $25 should be enough for at least two kayaks and probably a couple of wallets or a handbag as well. The 8mm wide leather I bought for the decklines on the same day as the seat only just got dispatched today. I'm not impressed with that particular eBay seller. The skin is coming from the states, so hopefully it'll arrive just in time for me to use it.

Six hours on the job today. What with stopping for lunch, feeding a couple of baby birds we're looking after, and doing some studying, it was quite a full day. The total 47 hours. It's looking more and more like 60 hours is a decent estimation of how long it takes to build one of these boats.

Kayak Build, Day 11

Not much to report today. I've spent approximately four and a half hours over the past couple of days, but not achieved much.

One thing I am quite pleased about it how the coaming has turned out so far. It's not perfect, as you can see from this first photo, it has a couple of kinks in it. They're not bad enough for me to throw it out and try again though. I bent the coaming by clamping it to the form and pouring hot water on it from the kettle. I think it took about six refills of the kettle, but I eventually got there. Interestingly, the kinks are at the front and back of the coaming. That's not because it's a tighter bend there, which it is slightly, it's just the way it turned out. Hopefully they won't look out of place once it's on the boat.





As far as the ribs are concerned, it's a really frustrating job. I have about eight of them fitted and a couple of those I'm not too happy with as they're only just sitting in the mortises. They'll need shimming to make sure they stay in place once the frame is finished.

I've gone back to using the steamer to do the ribs, mainly because it's very hard to keep the bend in one side of the rib when the other end is boiling. What I'm doing now is putting a hand towel in the steamer with the ribs. As I take out a rib, I wrap it in the towel, and that keeps it hot so I have more time in which to bend it. This allows me to bend the whole rib at once. I've got about as far as I can with the ribs at the moment though, since I need to buy some more wood.

Bending the ribs is a really time consuming job, as it involves a lot of standing around waiting. So I've done a few other bits and pieces while I wait. I've cut and shaped the rear deck stringers. I could fit them now, but the kayak is upside down and turning it the right way up would involve too much cleaning up of bits of rib and clamps.

I've also started on one of the breast hooks. These are small pieces of wood that will fit at each end of the boat to smooth the transition between the gunwales and the stem and stern pieces. I suspect fitting them and the deck stringers will be a couple of the easier jobs for this project.

As I said at the beginning of this post, another four and a half hours, taking the total to 41 hours.