Thursday, August 23, 2012

the problem with building a kayak

The pieces are joined with puzzle joints which have to be glued together before anything else,but if you don't buy a kit, then you have to copy the plans from the paper to the plywood and then cut them out .No matter how pedantic you work there will always be a small bit of imperfection.  This is not really a big problem as the technique is a bit forgiving.


Then they are stitched together with copper wire to force the wood into the kayak shape, and tacked with thickened epoxy, or dookey shmutz.  The copper wires are removed and the whole seam is glued together with dookey shmutz again before being fiberglassed.

Now we don`t have anything like a wooden boat school here in Israel, everyone who builds does it alone. We do have good communication between all the builders and help each other with problems and advice. At this moment there are 5 Matunucks being built simultaneously by our club members. Each one at home and each at his own tempo. It will be interesting to see them out on the water together when they are all finished.
Here's Izzy`s kayak before joining the hull and deck.

So whats the problem?
 Well its like this, whoever builds a kayak, at some stage during the first build asks themselves what would I do differently on my next one. And then you just cant stop, you build one and begin planning the next .
In my case I also loose a covered parking for my car and neglect home maintenance for the duration.
Of the 5 being built at the moment only 1 is a first timer, all the rest have at least one kayak on the water already.And I am trying this one again after having failed in my previous building attempt.
Bring on the big surf.


3 comments:

Silbs said...

Spot on. Having built 3 boats (1 a SOF), I am done doing that. Besides, my wife wants the garage cleaned up and has threatened divorce if I get one more boat.

Lee said...

Well done guys! I remember the photo of that cracked panel well Steve; it broke my heart! I agree; one is never enough I look at all the inperfections on my last SOF can look forward to the next to improve upon it!

Be a nice photo of all of these crafts together once you all get done.

Unknown said...

That`s the trouble with wives, they cant have enough shoes, but just try to bring another kayak into the house....