I know that blog posts are supposed to be short so below are a few pictures of my new kayak that my friend Evis and I build in the last two weeks. It did take us about 2 weeks to locate all the materials and even then we found we needed a few more things. It was a great experience and we are building his in the next few weeks just in time for the summer season here. He will benefit from the knowledge that we learned building mine. Hey, how did that work out? Hahaha. I couldn t figure out how to get a good overall view of the work that went into the kayak or the lessons that I learned while building it so this post is a bit longer than usual. My Kayak is completed!!! We built in about two weeks time and it took us about two weeks to locate enough satisfactory materials to build it. There are tons of things that I didn t do right even though I put a lot of thought into the plan before hand; you know how plans go sometimes. Some of the problem was the material that we decided to us for the stringers. Thinking that a prefinished strip of wood would save us time, not so. The prefinished strips cost about 1/3 more than ripping them from a board ourselves and are in the end inferior to what we would have used had we cut our own. They also didn t come in the length that we needed so we have to join them to get the correct length, not a big thing, but it adds another day to the build time. This being the first of two that we are building and mine, I dare say that I over built it a little. It is heavier than I was hoping for and the only place I can lose weight will be on the decking once I find a replacement for them. Other than the weight I am very pleased with the results. My kayak plan is a combination of my users experience in what I liked about my sit on top that I used for almost 10 years in Virginia Beach along the coastline. I am by no means an experienced kayaker, I like being on the water and paddling around. I used a lot of the information from the listed websites. They have all the information you need to build a kayak on them and then some. They make building a kayak easy since they have simplified all the scientific stuff to layman s terms. Yeah! I used the following tools; jigsaw, small hand pull saw, chisels, hammer, homemade mallet, electric drill and bits, screwdrivers, pliers and my undercounted skill saw aka table saw for resawing my deck boards. What prompted us to build a kayak? I had looked around pretty much all of Europe since the winter for what I consider a reasonable priced kayak. I had wanted to build one when I lived in Virginia Beach, but never go around to it because I owned one and I had plenty of other stuff ahead of that. When I mention it to Evis he started to look around and we both found that the final price tag for a basic kayak was a bit over the top. Here in Europe you can expect to pay a minimum of 600 Euros ($840), without the seat, paddle or vest. The paddle and vest will set you back another 100 Euros ($140). The shop in Montenegro didn t have a seat, but said he could get them for us, another 60 Euros ($84). So to get started in kayaking it costs you at a minimum $1100. Now maybe because I am from a beach town that just sounded crazy to me. So I figured it was time for me to actually make one. Evis wasn t so sure as he really doesn t understand what I did for a living in the US and needed a little convincing to throw in, so far he is pretty happy. His only concern is the weight of the 1 st kayak. Total cost is about $500 with paddle and vest and all the other material items, sanding pads, gloves, etc. Interestingly enough the cost of the vest and paddle was pretty reasonable, the vest was 54 Euros ($75) and the paddle was 39 Euros ($54) hey I just realized the vest and paddle have the same numbers; 54. Okay so there is the ground work of our 2014 Kayak Build. I will take you through the pictures from start to finish and add what I learned on top of what I have already stated. This will unfortunately point out my many mistakes, but since it is just between us friends I will try not to be too embarrassed. Hahaha.
The plan right from the start I had to modify the plan because of the stringer material which is 4.5cmW x 12mmT x 240cmL The keel is doubled up and I decided to make life easy by keeping a 40cm uniform Ht. The bottom and top chines have a 5cm offset from center, making the sides 30cm high. The coaming on mine is actually square as I opened it up when due to some shifting of the frames made the opening 110cm. This is probably a good thing for me as I always have trouble hitting my knees and is why I owned a sit on top Tarpon in VA Bch. Here with a borrowed jig saw we are cutting out the stringer notches on the frames. To the right Evis considers what he has gotten himself into. After we cut one set of frames I decided I didn t like the way they lined up and we redid them using a standard 30cm side ht and center height of 40cm.
Above is the initial frame layout to test all the stringer cutouts. What my Blacksmith Shop looked +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ like while building this Here you can see the keel has been laid. Now a more experienced boat builder would have seen right off the bat that the bow and stern were going to be a problem. What I discovered was that I didn t allow enough length for the bow or stern to have a nice slope in the front or back. I realized this when I put my first stringer up that you see tied with the orange string. Since I had glued the keel in place I continued on and would figure out how to fix both later on. Problem 47 and it is only 0800.
It is supposed to be this long Evis. Who did the planning here? Here you can see I am making additional stringer recesses on the bottom after the keel is in place. I wanted to make sure that my plan was correct and as it turned out I would not have fit well in the locations I originally thought they should go. This process worked out very well. For us. To the right is the bottom all finished To the left the coaming or opening is in place and the last few stringers or fillers are being put into place.
Because of my design error the bow required quite a lot of work and extra material adding a good bit of weight to it. Luckily I am 220lbs and that should keep my bow up when I am using it. Left in the rough and right smoothed off and ready for finishing sanding. Here you can see the stern. I know I decided to just cut it off. I also have the problem of compound bowing because my number 6 & 7 frame came out a bit smaller than I realized and felt that the stress on these stringers might cause a problem if I try to bent them into a point. Of course because of this decision my kayak is now only 11 4. Below: Left all framed out and stored in my shop Right deck supports get put in center decking is in place. It is removable in case we find a lighter solution.
Skinning this bad boy was really a difficult process. The material has no stretch at all, at least none that I can do by hand. If I had kept my upholstery stretchers, sort of like a wide mouth vise grip with plastic fused to the jaws, I could have done a better job. Since I didn t we did the best we could. Evis and his brother Florian helped do the main frame skinning and with 3 of us the material was not budging. So be it. We did the best we could and so far I and we are happy with the result. The next one will be easier I am sure. Put it tight staple, smooth out a wrinkle and staple, and so it goes on and on. We spent about 4 hours doing the bottom and another 1-1/2 on the top. I have nothing to compare it to so I guess it went smoothly. With the sides done we put on the top sections and Voila! We are done!!! I know that the cockpit and coaming is square. Let s face it I don t really have a layout table with which to do an oval and this seemed a reasonable solution. Once again it is stored in my Smithy for the glue to completely finish setting overnight.
Bianca, Evis, Florian (Evis Brother) and their Uncle came to witness the first launch of the first hand built kayak in Albania. Evis, Florian, their Uncle and I all took a turn in the kayak today. It was great fun and once again a learning experience! There is no leaking to be found after 30 minutes in the water. I was relieved, because of the way the skin was put on there is only one location for water to intrude and that is at the bow. I detected no water intrusion there. Of course water entered the boat after this period as Evis and his brother have never been in a kayak and there was some initial splashing water with the paddles. The especially large opening due to some redesign on the fly while building it made the opening 110cm vs 90cm that is should have been. After about an hour in the water and a weight test with Evis in the cockpit and me on sitting just behind it, the Battleship of Kayaks hardly sank an additional 5cm. Pretty awesome. Evis underway, His Uncle and Brother Florian on shore Evis learning to navigate
I am pleased with the way she handles with only one exception. I made the sides too high. I will have to live with this until I build another. Because they are high I need a longer paddle and I had thought that from the very beginning, but could not find one longer as supplies are a bit limited. Other than that I was very, very happy!!! Evis was as well as he was full of doubt about this endeavor because he had never seen or heard of this being done. His Uncle and Brother were both surprised and pleased with the results and so was Bianca. Evis Uncle give the Kayak his approval Florian give it a try and likes it a lot. Bianca after seeing all of us try the mighty vessel out even allowed Mimi to take a trip. Mimi was a bit nervous at first, but she started to get used to being in the kayak, but really didn t like the drips from the paddle as I stroked along. She was happy to get on land. All in all was a great experience and I learned a lot about building and designing a kayak. I learned that I could make the sides much shorter than I thought. I think having to rethink everything in centimeters threw my sense of size off, but I might just be grasping to justify my design thinking errors. Who said that!!!! Errors! NO ERRORS! Not only will it be lower I can also make it much lighter now that I am over my fear of the materials. All I kept hearing about is how the materials available in Albania are so inferior. Okay there is a much limited supply, but so far the materials have worked satisfactorily and I have no reason to suspect a problem in the future with any of the glues in particular. Design ways, we can move the back of the cockpit back another 20cm so that the front of the kayak has slightly more buoyancy than the rear. Mine has a lot more buoyancy in the rear and forces my bow down slightly. Not a real problem but I noticed it right way. It also has a tendency to pull ever so slightly to the left, again not a real problem, but I noticed it. Hey that is why we had this maiden voyage to see what she does. Again I am very happy with the results of my efforts. Evis will benefit greatly from what I learned building mine.