Launching

As planned, I gave the kayak to my girlfriend as a birthday present, and I'd say it all went well.

Från Födelsedagspresent: Kajak! :D

Of course it also came with a paddle, and a pair of wetsuit gloves (I got blisters from my paddle the first time I paddled so I figured better to wear gloves.)

Från Födelsedagspresent: Kajak! :D

It's a bit hard to see in this picture, but the kayak weighs just over 10 KG, which I count as a success as she needs to be able to carry it. :P



Which she did, down to the beach!

Från Födelsedagspresent: Kajak! :D

Från Födelsedagspresent: Kajak! :D

Paddling it went well, we paddled around for about an hour and a half, and while she did flip over a couple of times, and lean far enough to take in water over the edge lots of times it was successful.

Från Födelsedagspresent: Kajak! :D

Från Födelsedagspresent: Kajak! :D

Overall, I'm happy with it.
It's just over 3 meters long, 60 cm wide, and weighs 10 kg.
It's built mostly out of spruce, though I'm not sure of the wood type of the ribs.
And in my honest opinion, it looks good! :P

Från Födelsedagspresent: Kajak! :D

Day 5, 6 and 7.

I went out friday after work, and bent the coaming.
for reasons beyond me i decided to start the coaming at the front end, where the bend is most acute.... so it was no big surprise when the wood didn't quite cooperate with me on that part...



However, I'm still pleased enough with the end result that I didn't bother bending a new one.



I also put some padding on the seat, the backrest and under the heels as you can see.


Saturday:
Forward deck stringers added, and it was time for skinning!



Start by turning the kayak keel up, and laying the cloth out over it, I made a small pocket in one end to fit the end of the kayak, and then pulled the cloth, and pulled, and pulled as hard as I could to stretch it, and marked the furthest point I could pull it to, then i made another pocket there, and with some more pulling managed to get it over the other end.

With the lengthwise stretching done, it's time for stretching the other way, with wide zig-zag stitches, and a whole lot of pulling and doubling back and pulling again.



after that, I stretched two strings (the same 1,4mm polyester line I use for lashing) from one end of the kayak to the other, along the middle, and trimmed the cloth to about 10 cm overlap over the line, then I tucked all the loose cloth under the lines, and started stitching it together under the line.



The seam wasn't quite as straight as I wanted it, but it's quite ok anyways.



of course, only stitching from the front to masik, and back to backrest.



After that, it's time to stich the coaming on.
I tied the coaming on with string all around the kayak to hold it in place, and cut the loose cloth, so there was only about 5 cm cloth inside the coaming, and started sewing it in place, going through the hole in the coaming, through the cloth just under it, around the loose cloth, and back through the coaming.
and of course, once it was firmly in place, I went over it again, pulling another cm of cloth or so and tightening it all up as much as I could.





Kayak skinning done. :D

I took the kayak in (it started to rain) and put on the first layer of varnish, not particularly eventful, but of course, as usual the skin becomes completely transparent from the varnish.



Sunday:
Sunday morning I woke up to find that my cold had gotten worse, and I had a bit of a fever, but after a couple of hours I felt well enough to go put on the second layer of varnish.

and of course, once that was done I went back and collapsed into bed again.

later in the evening I went out again, time for colour! :D



The paint is actually the same as the varnish I use, but pre-coloured, and again I got surprised by how strong the colour was, but I expect it gets a bit darker as it dries.





I wanted to leave the coaming unpainted, but I accidentally got a big blob of paint on it, and decided to just got all out, but I'm considering painting either the flange, or the entire coaming blue, just to make it stick out a bit from the rest of the kayak.

I also have to finish up the paddle I'm making so we can actually go take it for it's maiden journey, which should be friday evening or saturday morning.:D

Day 4

I put a tarp around the kayak, and fastened it along the top with clamps, and went for a test paddle.

It tracks fairly ok, it turns a little bit, but I managed to paddle straight with a bit of surf, so I'd say it's ok. :P

as for stability, it's great, it's stable enough that you don't have to focus on it, but it feels like you could still flip it without too much trouble.

the biggest problem I had with it was that it's not built for my size, so I missed the foot rest, and I had no seat, so I had a nice Pine string to sit on.


However, I decided that the masik will be unneccesary as she does not intend to roll, and the arched deck beam past her knees will work fine.

When i got back i made some seat slats, to make it more comfortable, from leftover rib stock, and oiled the frame, and measured and cut out a form for the coaming.





tomorrow I'm planning on going out to bend the coaming, and saturday it's going to rain so I'll wait untill then to put the skin on.

Time spent day 4: 1½ hours
seat slats, oiled frame, coaming form made.

Day 3

apparently blogger.com crashed and killed my post. :<

anyways, I went out again yesterday.

after a false start because I'm lazy when it comes to measuring I got the stemplates cut out, and got the keel lashed on without any trouble.



The chines gave me a little bit of trouble as they simply wouldn't bend enough, so in the end I cut some new one's that were a bit thinner and got them lashed on.



Next up was the arched deck beams, nothing really exciting to report here either... :P



so... more or less done with the frame now.

still need to do the masik, and coaming, and oil the frame, but tomorrow I'm gonna "skin" it with a tarp and go for a test paddle.

time spent day 3: 3½ hours
time spent total: 11½ hours (plus 2 hours due to breaking the gunwale)

Day 2

Finally got out to do some more building yesterday.

I went out after work and got started on the deck beams, I found that the jig from cunninghams book didn't quite work this time as the gunwales are far more curved, and it ended up a few mm wrong every time, so in the end I eyeballed it and managed to get them to fit well anyways.

after I had them cut out and screwed in (I'm a lazy builder, and tenons are beyond my capabilities) I decided to get started on bending the ribs.

I did not soak them this time, after comments on qajaqUSA told me it's not really neccesary, and I found that they were right.
the wood feels different, but I didn't get more breakages, however they held the bend better and didn't spring right back to straight, not sure if this is good or bad, but after an hour and a half I had all the ribs bent and fitted, with about 6 or 7 broken.





I never manage to get the end ribs quite right, while they're not "broken" there are always some small kinks in them, but in the end I'm just too lazy to bend the same rib more than 3 times.

Steambox:


Bending Jig (used no belt):

Day 1

Yesterday I started building a Greenland style Skin-on-frame Kayak for my girlfriend.

At around 1 PM we went to buy lumber, with a final bill of about 650 Swedish Crowns (65 euro)
The wood is primarily Spruce (Gran).



I got out the circle saw, and started ripping the planks for gunwales, deck ribs and chines/keel.



with the gunwales, chines/keel and deckribs cut to width i had two spare boards, apparently I overbought... :P

I started work on the gunwales, marking out all the deck rib locations, and mortises for the ribs, and got out the router to make the mortises.

When i built my first kayak I tried several different methods for making the mortises, with mostly a lot of trouble and time wasted.

This time I used the router, with a 6 mm drill (didn't have an 8 mm)and basically drilled 3 holes, and then connected them with the router. (when I tried just making it as one hole with the router it kept veering to the side and ruining it)
and then afterwards going over the holes again with an 8 MM chisel. (best investment ever)



So after about 5 hours of work i had all mortises cut so a piece of the rib stock fitted in, and the sheerlines and all such cut, and ready to be fitted into the forms.





As i was bending it, and asking my girlfriend to push the form a bit further in (when this picture was taken) I learned that 5 hours of work can be lost in a split second.



apparently one of the gunwales didn't quite like bending that far (seemed fine when I tested it before starting work on it)

fortunately, I had extras, the first plank I sawed up cracked when I tested it (more thuroughly this time)

but with my last spare plank I cut out a gunwale and spent about an hour and a half getting to the point I was before, and this time managed to get them into the forms without cracking them.



and of course, when I wanted to put my rib stock in water to soak, the tub I usually use had broken, so I have to buy a new one during the week and go out with it to soak the ribs.

Also, going away next weekend, so the deckribs, and bending will have to wait untill the weekend after.