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.

First paddle with the GP

It works.

I must admit to feeling a little apprehensive about trying out the GP. After all, it just looks like a big stick. What if I get in the water, start paddling and don't get anywhere. I considered launching somewhere where there wouldn't be an audience, but I really wanted to paddle from Wellington Point, out to King Island and back. It's not a long trip, only about 4.5km there and back and takes about an hour of easy paddling. Plus it's the closest launch point to home.

So I headed out to Wello, then home again, because I'd packed everything except my PFD, then back out to Wello with the PFD.

Well I didn't have anything to worry about. It didn't even take me long to get used to the paddle like I thought it would, it just felt right. Better still, it seems to work better than the Euro paddles I've been using. I usually take a GPS with me to see how far I've gone, my average and max speed, etc. I was surprised to find I'd got up to 11kmh, without really paddling hard. My previous best in the same kayak was 8.5kmh.

As an added bonus, it fits in the bow handle, so I've got somewhere to put it when I want to stop and take photos.

This is King Island at high tide. It's roughly in the same spot as the background photo was taken.



I can't wait to get out in the double with Donna and see how we go both using GPs.

Greenland Paddle part 4

Now for the fun bit, the hand planing. I have a cheap, Trojan hand plane, made in China and bought in Bunnings. It's not the best for this job, but once the handle is removed it works. A decent block plane would work better, it'd certainly be a lot more comfortable to use. You could use the electric planer, but you don't really have enough control over it, at least I don't.

So sit yourself down in a comfy chair, or sit on a sawing horse, whatever you have handy, and start planing. The next two pictures show what the paddle looks like when you've finished planing.





If you're like me, once you've finished planing you'll have a few rough spots left that just get rougher the more you plane. Time to bring out the sander. I used an orbital sander to get it as close as I could to looking right, then finished off with some 150 paper on a block to finish off and get rid of any left over pencil marks.

Below is the finished item. All it needs now is a few coats of whatever you want to coat it with. I'm using Linseed oil, mainly because it was easy to get. Tung oil, the proper stuff, is what most people recommend and I've also heard Deks Olje recommended. The choice is yours.









Now to try them out, then get started on the kayak.

Greenland Paddle part 3

I didn't get called into work tonight, so it was an opportunity to do a bit more work on the paddle.

As you can see from the next three pictures, it looks a lot better now it's been tidied up. The edge of the blades was easy to do with the electric planer, but doing the loom and the shoulders was a different matter, it was a mixture of hand plane, surform tool and 1" chisel. A spokeshave would have been handy, but the one I've bought on eBay is still on its way. It's turned out looking better than the first paddle anyway.







Once the shaping was done, it was time to mark out the final shape of the paddle. In Matt's video he says that the shaping after this is the best step. After doing the first paddle, I tend to agree, that's when you really get the feel for the paddle. Plus you can do it sitting down.





Next step, the final shaping, then all it will need is a few coats of Linseed oil.

Greenland Paddle part 2

Okay, I didn't get around to going for a paddle today, I had some stuff to do for uni and for a job application, so once I finished that I figured I'd go out to the shed and make some noise. It's a really nice day to be out on the water today too. Oh well, it's low tide now, so most of the decent launch sites are not really useable, unless you like being up to your knees in mud. Tomorrow's another day and Donna's home then, so if the weather's nice we can take out the double instead.

As you can see from the next two pictures, the planing has been done. Using an electric planer makes the job so much easier, but you do need to be careful you don't get carried away. You need to stop every now and then to make sure your surfaces are level. Because of the slight twist in this piece I couldn't just use my square as you normally would, measuring from the edge. I had to use it as a straight edge instead.





This next picture shows how that curve in the timber has now disappeared.



Once the planing is done, it's time to mark out the shape of the paddle on both faces. I used my spirit level to draw the lines, I don't think it's completely straight, which is why I had problems yesterday marking out before I planed. I'd recommend using a steel rule, such as Matt uses in his video, for better accuracy. It's not really a problem for this part of the job though, since once you start shaping the paddle a lot of it comes down to how it looks, i.e. sighting down the length of the paddle.





If you have a bandsaw, I'd recommend you use that for cutting the shape out, rather than a jigsaw. In fact, a circular saw is better for cutting out along the straight parts of the blades than a jigsaw. The jigsaw is okay for cutting around where the loom meets the blades, but it's painfully slow, and noisy, for anything else. It may just be the blade I'm using, but it doesn't like to cut along the grain.



As you can see below, the jigsaw isn't a very accurate way of cutting, but as long as you keep outside the lines, on both sides of the timber, you'll be able to square it all up and make it look pretty with a plane or a spokeshave.



It's now starting to look like a Greenland paddle, and I've only been working on it for a few hours.



Next step is to tidy up the edges with a plane, then mark them up for the final lot of shaping.

Making a Greenland Paddle

Until I can get all the materials together to build the kayak, or at least enough to start on the gunwales, I figured I'd have a go at making a couple of Greenland paddles. I managed to find a half decent piece of pine at a local timber merchant that was big enough to make two paddles*. I made mine last week, but never thought of taking photographs of the process till I was half way through, they don't take long to make.

Below is the finished product prior to being oiled. The blank piece of pine next to it will become Donna's paddle, and the subject of the next few entries in this blog; including this one.



There is a mine of information online for making kayaks, but everyone that writes about making Greenland paddles seems to use Chuck Holst's instructions. I'm the same, but I also downloaded Matt Johnson's video on the subject. Matt also used Chuck's instructions in his video, so it's well worth watching a couple of times before you start.

The timber I got was originally 2.4m long 190mm wide and 35mm thick. I got them to rip it down the middle for me as I figured they'd do a better job than I could with my handheld circular saw. The two pieces cost me just over $25 for the lot.

As you can see from the picture below, there's a very slight curve in the wood, so it wasn't just a case of finding the middle of each end and measuring from there. I had to mark out the middle of the middle - if that makes any sense - then draw a straight line out to the ends. It basically means I just have to plane more off one side than the other to get rid of the curve. There was also a very slight twist in the wood as well, which caused a lot of head scratching and erasing of lines, until I got out a string line to make sure I'd measured correctly.

You know the old saying, measure twice, cut once.



You can see in the next picture the offset. On a straight piece of wood those two lines would be either side of the middle of that end. Once the waste is removed the curve won't be noticeable, in fact it won't even be there.



The next picture shows where I've marked the centre of the soon-to-be paddle and the ends of the loom, or handle. For this paddle the loom is 50cm long, just under 20".



When I made the first paddle last week, I then went on the same day to plane down to where I'd marked, then I marked out the shape of the paddle on each face and started cutting with a jigsaw. All I did today was cut the timber to length, 210cm, and marked it out ready for planing. I had to feed the animals and get ready for work after that. The plane is a bit too noisy for me to use once I get home from work, so I couldn't work on it tonight. If the weather's fine tomorrow I hope to try out the first paddle, then I'll get stuck into the planing when I get home. That'll be the topic of my next entry.


*I mean the pine was big enough for two paddles, not the timber merchant.

An introduction

Astute readers will notice that the kayak in the background picture is not a home made kayak, it's a borrowed Old Town Nantucket.

Back in January, my wife Donna and I had our first taste of kayaking when we did our first tour with Tony and Katrina from Redlands Kayak Tours in a double kayak we were thinking of buying off them. We bought the kayak that day.

There are times during the week, when Donna's at work, that I'd love to go out for a paddle by myself, but our double, a Q-Kayaks Sprite II, is a bit to heavy and cumbersome to load and unload by myself, so Tony offered the Nantucket to me on loan until I can get a decent kayak of my own. I should mention here that Katrina is our niece, it's a case of family helping each other out.

Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that I can save up my money and get a half decent, second-hand sea kayak, that might or might not suit me, or I can build a skin-on-frame kayak myself for a fraction of the price, knowing it will be custom made to fit me. Easy decision really.

So that's what this blog is all about. Sure there are heaps of other blogs out there about building kayaks. Some of them are written by people that have been doing it for years, some like me are doing it for the first time. Some of the kayaks are real works of art, some, well lets just say I hope mine turns out somewhere in the middle. One thing is for sure, all of the kayak building blogs I've read have been well worth reading, because everyone of them has taught me something about building a skin-on-frame kayak.

I'm hoping this blog will help someone too. If not, at least it'll be a good diary of my progress.