wood duck kayak

Finally, after all this time, I have something that looks like a kayak.

It took me about five hours to stitch the four hull panels together.

Tomorow I will start glueing the seems with epoxy. When the epoxy cures, I will remove all the stitches.

It's too late to turn back now !!! The kayak is to big to get out of my man cave. You can see the window in this photo. I will have to cut through the 10 inch thick concret wall and make a window large enough to get the kayak outside.

Now comes the fun part. After all the time spent making parts and jigs, it's time to start assembling parts into something that looks like a kayak.

The hull panels are held together with wire. Everyone seems to use copper wire for the stitching. I tried copper wire and the stitches kept braking. I was not even touching the kayak and I heard a ( POP ), another broken stitch !!!

So I tried some .041 SS safty wire !!! Much better.

The stitches are temporary. After the panels are tacked with glue, the stitches are removed.

wood duck kayak

04-07-2010

A lower hull panel clamped to the router jig.

I routered all four hull panels in less than an hour.

wood duck kayak

My good old block plane and carbide sanding block. Simple tools that make hard work easy.

If you look close at the edge of the hull panel you will see the bevel that goes the full 12 foot length of the kayak. It took only three or four minutes to make that bevel with the tools shown.

wood duck kayak

04-04-2010

Here I have glued the scarf joints for the upper and lower hull panels for the left side of the kayak. I have clamped them to the router jigs for proper alignment. The epoxy glue needs 24 hours to cure. Then I will repete the prosses for the right side panels.

wood duck kayak

04-04-2010 Easter Sunday

I have spent my life as a tool maker and have never used a block plane until now. What a great tool. I used it and a carbide sanding block to make the tapers for my scarf joints.

The kayak is 12 feet long but the Okoume plywood is only 8 feet. That is why I need to scarf two pieces of plywood together. So that my hull panels will be long enough to make a 12 foot kayak.

04/01/2010

This is a poor photo of the router jigs that I made for my kayak. They make the part layout on the Okoume plywood very easy. Then you rough cut the parts out with a saber saw. The parts are finished by placing them on the jigs and using a router.

You would not make jigs to make just one kayak. But it makes the job so much easier when you are planing to make multiple kayaks. This will also make all the parts uniform in shape. The left side panels will match the right side perfictly, eliminateing any chance of a twist in the shape of the hull.

Lou