Fancy a Strip?
After going sea kayaking a couple of times I decided I needed to buy myself a sea kayak. I looked in all the usual places such as magazines and the net and decided new was out of my price range. As I was after glass rather plastic for the ‘feel good’ factor I found choice and used availability very limited. Looking around on the net I stumbled on a couple of sites that supplied plans to self-build a wooden cedar strip sea kayak. These boats looked brilliant and I was amazed at what I thought were top craftsman building and designing these boats, never did it cross my mind that I could actually build one myself. One site I looked at particularly was full of all details and had a blow by blow account of the procedure. I pondered for a couple of minutes to consider if I could do this but decided not to be so silly. I looked around for about a month to see if anything came up but to no avail. I then stumbled on oneoceankayaks.com again, the site I had looked at before. Bugger it, a rush of blood and a couple of clicks later I had plans for a kayak winging its way from Massachucets, USA. Still no real intention of building one but the plans were about £40 so not too much damage done.
The plans turned up about 3 days later, (about the same time as a 1 st class Royal Mail letter from your next door neighbour) and they looked a bit daunting. Just sheets of paper with lots of different sized circles on them. I happened to be having lunch the next day at my better half’s parents and mentioned it to Mike, Leonie’s father. He was quite keen on the idea and being a sailor and owning a double garage it was decided we’d have a crack at it. First job was to get some chipboard,stick the ‘circles’ on it and cut out with a jigsaw. We made a 16ft box spine and stuck the circles to it, we now had a mould of the inside of the kayak. ‘No problem’ I hear you say, this took about a month.
 |
 |
|
Plans before cutting out
|
Cut out templates ready for attaching to spine.
|
I sourced some cedar strip from a company in Bristol, they also supplied glass products and epoxy so I ordered the necessary, over 1000ft of 16ft long cedar strips and a few of Tulip to give a different colour along the middle, about £400. It all turned up on a lorry about a week later. Now having spent the cash for the materials theres no going back. It’s all laid there on the floor and somehow we got to turn it into an ocean going craft, ummh.
 |
 |
|
1 st strip fitted along centre line
|
Building up strips
|
The first strip is fitted along the centre line and away we went, the cedar was ordered ‘bead and cove’ so its staple, glue, staple, building up the strips .We did the hull first which took about a month. When complete all the staples needed to come out. Endless sanding then followed to get a nice smooth finish. When the hull was completely smooth and blemish free it was time to change tasks and start glassing. This really was a welcome change to the gluing and sanding but also quite daunting as neither of us had done much glassing so it was jump in and look later. With hindsight we should have chosen a cooler day to glass, it was 30 degrees outside and the resin was thickening fast, but once you’ve started that’s it. We had a few air bubbles ,but for our first time not bad .
We used West Systems epoxy, which is expensive at around £200 but top-notch stuff.
 |
 |
|
Homemade ‘fairing’ board to ease sanding
|
Homemade ‘fairing’ board to ease sanding. Cutting the glass sheet to size
|
Mike ‘The Shaper’ Cousins wetting out the glass
Once the epoxy had gone off hard, about 24hrs, it was back to sanding and more coats of epoxy to bury the weave of the glass cloth. We then turned it over and started again ,only this time we were a bit more careful because the deck is what everyone else was going to look at. Lots of stripping, staples, glue, remove staples, sanding and glassing later it’s was time to cut 3 holes in it.!! This was probably one of the most nerve racking bits to do as one slip up with the jigsaw could have resulted in an odd size cockpit or hatch.
 |
 |
|
Hull glassed ready to start hull
|
Shaping the nose
|
 |
 |
|
Preparing deck for glass
|
Hol cut, fitting carbon cockpit rim
|
Everything was finished on the outside, so the time came to split the boat in half and remove the mould. We pulled the deck off alright but couldn’t get the mould out of the hull. It was stuck fast with all the glue that we had put in between the strips. Desperation saw us drill it and attach some string, give it a good yank and it eased away slowly. Start again with sanding and glassing the inside, now just glass the two halves together, only now the two halves didn’t fit, somehow we had altered the shape when we glassed the outside. Only one thing for it, we got some canoe straps and ratcheted it together so it would hold while we glassed the seam, next day we carefully released the straps and it held!! To protect epoxy from the sun and UV added a few coats of polyurethane plastic to give a tough finish.
 |
 |
|
Strapping the two halves together
|
Mold stuck in hull
|
Once the boat was complete it was a relief, it had taken about 8 months and to get it on the water was the next step I’d been desperate to get to for months. All we had to do was fit the seat, backstrap, footrest, bulkheads, hatch fittings, toggles, it seemed to go on for weeks. Finally we got it on the van and down the river. Magic, Mike was pleased to get his garage back just in time for the winter.
Paddling something you’ve built was a new experience . Everywhere I go people stop and ask me questions about it. Friends and family obviously question whether something I’ve made will sink but I tell them it’s made of wood, which floats and anyway if I were shipwrecked at least I’d have firewood.
Many thanks must go to Mike for helping me throughout from start to finish, who without his woodworking skills I would have no doubt ended with a floating log. Thanks must also go to his wife ,Nova ,for putting up with me making a constant mess in the garage for 9 months and for making endless cups of tea.
Just outside our cottage on the Isle of Skye ,Sept 2004. Cuillin mountains in distance, our destination for the days paddle and overnight camp. See Mike’s write-up on the Sea kayaking page about how we got on !!!
Take a look at oneoceankayaks.com for loads of info.
Clive