Diving in with a Kayak Build

[Chestnut]

Man that looks awesome. Did the walnut come in the kit or was that something you made? I can't remember if you did your own cove and bead for your SUPs?

Some day i want to do a canoe from scratch. It would be cool to so paulownia but that's probably not feasible.

[Bmac]

25 minutes ago, Chestnut said:

Man that looks awesome. Did the walnut come in the kit or was that something you made? I can't remember if you did your own cove and bead for your SUPs?

Some day i want to do a canoe from scratch. It would be cool to so paulownia but that's probably not feasible.

They included the walnut with the kit. The kit has 3 wood strips, walnut, alaskan white cedar and western red cedar. I did not do cove and bead with my SUPs. The bead and cove really help to get a closed joint as you connect the strips on a curved surface. If you start 90 degree edges, you'd have to bevel the edge based on the curve. With bead and cove the joint is always closed. My SUPs were pretty flat so I was able to use 90 degree joints.

I could make some strips, key would be to find straight grained wood, knots and imperfections would not be able to tolerate some of these curves. 

[Chestnut]

41 minutes ago, Bmac said:

I could make some strips, key would be to find straight grained wood, knots and imperfections would not be able to tolerate some of these curves. 

I can't remember the strip width but my thought if i did it would be to slice up 8/4 material.

[Tom King]

Pam says, if they make one that takes the Hobie pedal drive, she wants one.

[Coop]

Tom, that would be pretty cool for your location. I think you should make her one with a buddy drive, with you in the back. 

[Tom King]

She'll have to keep using the plastic one.  The to-do list is just too long.

[Bmac]

Quick update, the strip deck is just about completed. A lot of fiddling to get the pieces to fit and you really can do all of this by hand. I've been using a handsaw, block plane and rasps to fit together the strips. 

Here's were I'm at right now, hope to finish up the deck by the end of the weekend.

Stern is pretty much done, 2 very small sections need to be filled in but I'll do that once I take the deck off for glassing;

Bow is coming along;

To fit together the pieces you need to cut your angles and make a cove where one is needed, rat tail rasp works great;

Or make a bead where needed;

That piece will fit here;

Another neat tool is to use a small piece of stripping wrapped in sandpaper to help shape your coves and beads;

Thanks for looking.

 

[Chestnut]

I want to make a canoe so bad and your not even done yet...

[Bmac]

I know @Chestnut, I'm dragging on this build. Actually been pretty busy cleaning up around the house after a near miss with a tornado. Fortunately for us we weren't hit but high winds still did some minor property damage. Also, it was tedious putting together the strip decking. I think if I do another one of these (perhaps not if, but rather when), it will go better. Took me a while to get the feel of it and the process down. But nevertheless, I'm now done with the top deck. Did a little cleanup of the surface, but will wait for the final sanding and finishing of the topside after I glass the underside of the deck. So here's where I'm at;

Pic from the bow;

From this pic you can appreciate the sweep and curve of the deck, this made it a little challenging putting the deck together;

I struggled here where the deck meets the cockpit combing. This is my best area as far as results are concerned;

You can see in this pic I didn't do as well here as some strips aren't as tight to the combing as I'd like them to be. I plan to run a bead of thickened epoxy on the underside of this joint prior to glassing to fill in any gaps.

So after I was done gluing up the deck I removed the nails that were holding it in place on the forms and took a deep breath before I teased the deck off the forms and hull. This was stressful as I was trusting I didn't accidentally glue it down any where. My packing tape did it's job and I was able to carefully pop the lid off. Here's the deck sitting with the underside exposed;

At this stage I need to clean up the joint between the combing and the deck, I need to remove excess glue and clean up the underside of the deck, and then I'll need to glass the underside of the deck. 

Thanks for looking.

[Tom King]

It's gorgeous. 

The thing that impressed me the most, in the American History Museum, at the Smithsonian, was the very old kayak built by Eskimos.  It was a thing of beauty, and necessary for their survival, all made by hand with primitive tools.  I think the skin was seal skin.

I looked for a picture, but couldn't find the exact one.  They went out in these, in water cold enough to kill you if you fell in, to feed their families.

 

[Chestnut]

My finger is hovering over a cove and bead bit to cut planking, as well as the plans for the canoe I want to build....

2 hours ago, Bmac said:

I know @Chestnut, I'm dragging on this build.

I was in no way stating that you were working slowly. I meant that i haven't even seen the finished product yet and It's already giving me the itch to make a canoe. In fact your pace is astounding.

[Bmac]

1 hour ago, Chestnut said:

My finger is hovering over a cove and bead bit to cut planking, as well as the plans for the canoe I want to build....

I was in no way stating that you were working slowly. I meant that i haven't even seen the finished product yet and It's already giving me the itch to make a canoe. In fact your pace is astounding.

OK, got it, I see what your saying, but I feel like I'm dragging, really wanted to get all this done over the past weekend.

Curious, what canoe plans are you looking into?

[Chestnut]

55 minutes ago, Bmac said:

Curious, what canoe plans are you looking into?

I've always had my eye on bear mountain boats. I want to build a canoe that is nice and stable and good for 2 adults plus some gear, so probably the Freedom 15'. It'd also be nice to get a lighter canoe hence the 15' length. I'm not an expert paddler so getting something less stable but more maneuverable isn't really in my wheel house.

I'm really tempted to do my own planking and just use scarf joints as I doubt I'm likely to get long enough material. I'm still mulling over the large cost of buying pre-made planking.

[wtnhighlander]

@Bmac, that is a remarkably small amount of glue I see dripped on the floor, for all that you had to apply!  

[Tom King]

I would set up two of my router/"shaper" rigs for the two cove and  bead bits.  A shop vac gets 100% of the dust.  The PVC pipe is the air intake, that keeps chips from being thrown out, while protecting fingers.  You can see the router is still perfectly clean, and it's run hundreds of parts without touching it.  You can see the way that's built on the Windows page on my website.

[Bmac]

Picture heavy post as I'm paddling toward the finish line construction wise. 

Deck underside was cleaned up and before glassing I ran a bead of thickened epoxy at the junction of the combing and the deck. This creates a smoother transition for the glassing but also strengthens this mostly end grain glue joint;

Glass laid out on the underside;

Epoxy applied;

Just behind the cockpit, they recommend you place an extra layer of glass, as this is an area you will sit on to enter the cockpit. Extra layer placed and then saturated with epoxy;

Next comes the cutting out of the hatch behind the cockpit. They give you a template and this template will eventually be glued on tne underside of the hatch. Two holes placed by their CNC router machine help you find the centerline;

Place it on and trace using the inside of the guide as your line, midline also marked on the kayak deck;

Well I wasn't happy that first the circle looks off because of how it hits the walnut feature, any number of things could have thrown it off, but the walnut feature really makes it obvious;

So I fiddled with the location some and drew a few guidelines;

Settled on this one because it preserves the sharp walnut contrast;

Small drill bit used to open up a slot for the jigsaw blade;

And very very carefully, with a fine toothed metal cutting blade I cut out the hatch;

Next, while the deck is off I wanted to secure the bolts that hold on the foot supports. The plan calls for this to be done after the deck is put on, but I saw posts where guys did it before, and it seems a lot easier to do that. Here's the kit I will use;

The bolts need to be epoxied on perfectly, or the foot supports won't fit, so I want to tack them in place while they are in the foot supports, but I can not, under any circumstances glue the foot supports in place. First set up looked good, but the spring clamps put a little too much pressure on the supports. I didn't want to squeeze out all the epoxy;

So changing it up a bit I worked out a clamping arrangement that applied less pressure;

You can see packing tape in place between the bolt and the support, and here's the glue up, used thickened epoxy, thickened to a peanut butter consistency;

Preparing a piece of glassing;

Once glue is tacked up, but not hard, I removed the supports and placed the glassing, pushing it into any extra epoxy;

Then added some more thickened epoxy to the glassing over the collar of the bolt and finally wetted the glassing completely with unfilled epoxy, supports will stay off these bolts until everything else is done so the tape will also stay in place to protect the threads;

So there I am for now. Next step is a big one, attaching the deck to the hull. 

Thanks for looking.

 

[pkinneb]

Looks great Bmac!!!

I tell you what you and a few others on this form (@Chesnut comes to mind) can really make a guy feel like a slug  

[Bmac]

12 hours ago, pkinneb said:

Looks great Bmac!!!

I tell you what you and a few others on this form (@Chesnut comes to mind) can really make a guy feel like a slug  

Paul

Looking at your basement journal shows you are anything but a slug.

[Mark J]

The black supports are going to be returned to the bolts after all is cured.  But it looks like the epoxy is kinda mounded up and might prevent the support from seating. Is that an illusion? 

[Bmac]

1 hour ago, Mark J said:

The black supports are going to be returned to the bolts after all is cured.  But it looks like the epoxy is kinda mounded up and might prevent the support from seating. Is that an illusion? 

No, it is not an illusion, they is a slight mound around the bolt. The mound is some filled epoxy to give some holding strength to the bolt. It may slightly affect the seating, but more than likely not as there is some relief on the underside of the foot support. 

The foot supports won't be placed until I'm done construction, tape on threads of bolts protects any wayward epoxy from creating a problem as the deck is epoxied on next.

[Bmac]

A couple of big steps toward the finish line. I now have the deck attached to the hull. To start the process I attached the deck via packing tape and then it was turned on it's side;

I mixed a thickened mixture of epoxy and had to basically crawl into the kayak. Here's a look at the joint prior to filleting with epoxy;

Here are the tools I'll use;

This is the epoxy fillet placed;

After the fillet is placed I wetted glass tape and I'll be rolling this into the seam;

Here's a few pics with the tape in place;

After 24 hrs the packing tape was removed and a lot of sanding to get ready for glassing the deck;

Glass in place prior to wetting, I'm going to wrap the glass from the deck to the hull to reinforce that joint;

After wetting with epoxy;

And I can't forget the hatch cover;

So these steps just about conclude the construction phase. I have a little to do with the cockpit combing and hatch area. After that it will be a lot of sanding and finishing.

Thanks for looking.

[Dave H]

Looking great Bmac another beautiful project done at break neck speed. I wish I hit all my projects with the drive you demonstrate, my list of things to do would be a lot shorter.

[pkinneb]

35 minutes ago, Dave H said:

Looking great Bmac another beautiful project done at break neck speed. I wish I hit all my projects with the drive you demonstrate, my list of things to do would be a lot shorter.

LOL no kidding!

[Tom King]

For glassing, or coating in hard to reach hull to deck joints in Hobie Cats, I used to use a sheepskin corner roller.  If it required a layer of cloth, I'd lay the tape out on cardboard, saturate it, and wind it around the roller.  Then roll it out in place.  There was a problem with Hobie 18 lips leaking where the tramp frame was riveted through the lip.  The only access was an 8" port in the deck.

  I first tried a foam roller, but never again because the foam melted.  I can't remember where I found those sheepskin corner rollers, or even if they are still available.  Some of the fiberglass suppliers sell different width brush rollers that might work, but I was always worried about the rolled up tape getting caught on the bristles, so never tried it.  The sheepskin would hold a fair amount of resin, thickened, or not.

Looking at this thread should make it Much more obvious, and helpful to anyone new, thinking about building one.  I wish I had the time.  I would really enjoy building one.  I enjoy watching you build it, anyway.

Edited to add:  They still make them, but not at disposable prices, like they were back in the '80's.  https://www.amazon.com/MARSHALLTOWN-CR3-3-Inch-Corner-Roller/dp/B003A83GQY

[Chestnut]

13 hours ago, Bmac said:

Glass in place prior to wetting, I'm going to wrap the glass from the deck to the hull to reinforce that joint;

After wetting with epoxy;

Did the glass get trimmed after the first picture above? The reason I ask is because it looks like there are some folds in the fiberglass sheet along the edges. If the glass does get some folds how does that look after everything is covered with epoxy? My final question is how heavy is the fiberglass? It seems like it should be kind heavy but i have a feeling that it is deceptively light.

Also i can't help but notice that this doesn't look like your shop. Does it make the project more difficult not working in your shop or because it was a kit it doesn't matter much?