Strongback

If you read my post entitled Delay you'll remember I was concerned about not having supplies delivered in time for the weekend.  When I got home from work on Friday I had three boxes from Chesapeake Light Craft on my doorstop.  After jumping up and down and fist pumping for a few minutes I took the packages inside (I might have done a little Snoopy dance too).  The kit only included a strongback, forms and plans.  Everything was well packaged and in good order.

Yardwork was on the roster for Saturday so today I sorted my lumber for planing and scarfing then assembled the strongback.  Below you can see a thickness measurement.

 

I measured the thickness, width and lengths and matched up boards as closely as possible.  

  

Using blue masking tape I sorted the boards that will be scarfed together.  The slat lengths will be between 20' and 15' after scarfing.  Some boards won't be scarfed in advance.  I estimated the number of slats per board and taped the measurements and slat count on each board remembering to include 1/4" of waste per 1" of width.  Even with a thin kerf saw blade I fully expect to lose about 25% of the width.

 

After that was done I set them aside and brought out the strongback parts.  The finished strongback needs to be 179".  

 

The plywood was cut and keyed to make a box.   The wide boards were 8' (4) and 4' (2).  The narrow boards were sized at 8', 6' and 2'.  There were two of each length. 

  

This is going to take a few bar clamps!  The plywood was laid out and trimmed to achieve the 14' 11" length.  Then I staggered the boards so the butt joints would not line up and weaken the box beam type strongback.  Some how I still managed to have two joints aligned but I reinforced them with a sawdust and glue putty.  In fact most of the butt joints were puttied together.

I used small finishing nails to secure to tops and sides of the box.  A few nails did come through the sides and had to either be extracted and re-nailed or ground down with a Dremel.  The strongback was very straight and strong.  It is now resting clamped overnight.

You can see some short boards on the left of the plywood table.  These are 1" x 4" boards cut to 11.5" lengths and will be used as spacers between forms.  This will negate the need to screw the forms to the strongback itself, make the forms align better and the kit will be reusable in case I decide to make another.  Win-win if you ask me.   

My dad assisted with the strongback.  It was really great to have him help and I hope he continues to do so.  This part really benefited from an extra set of hands and I couldn't think of anyone else I'd rather have help.  If you're lucky enough to be able to work on a project like this with your father then you are truly blessed.

Thanks dad!  You've always been a strongback in my life and I appreciate all you do!

Guillemot

Since I'm waiting on some supplies I thought I'd take a moment to talk the design.  I'm going with the Guillemot as designed by a boat builder named Nick Schade.  He's put a lot of thought into his kayaks and is a prominent designer/builder in the stripper* world.  In fact he wrote the book on strip building kayaks.  Well two of them anyway.  

After reading up on a few different boats I settled on the Guillemot because it should fit how I expect to use it.  I'm looking for something big enough to cruise across local lakes and paddle around in inter-coastal waters.  From time to time I may want to carry camping gear for overnight trips.  While there are a number of large kayaks that fit the bill this one seems to have a good balance between stability, payload and speed.  Not to mention it's quite beautiful.  As an added bonus Schade's book The Strip-Built Sea Kayak focuses on building this and two other models and since I was planning on reading it anyway, well, the Guillemot just made sense.

A close second for me was the Petrel.  Another model by Schade.  I actually think it's a better looking craft and it's faster but he sacrificed a little stability in it's design.  Since I haven't kayaked in many years and will be retraining from scratch stability was the main factor in deciding in favor of the Guillemot.  So basically it was a coin toss.  Schade has a series of online videos on YouTube I really enjoyed that demonstrate the steps of building a Petrel and if you're interested at all in the process I heartily recommend these videos.

Another boat I really like is his Night Heron.  Again stability was a factor but this time so was size.  The cockpit is small and the total length is a foot longer for rougher waters.  Of the three I'd say this is my favorite based on looks alone.  I'm not trying to say the Guillemot is an ugly duckling (no pun intended) but the Night Heron has a permanent place in the Modern Museum of Art.

Once I had the boat picked out I thought it was important to come up with a basic deck and hull color pattern.  I looked at a number of other kayaks and boats for inspiration and came up with the design below.  I hope it's not overly complicated for my first build but I wanted to mimic the coloration of the Common Guillemot; the namesake for the boat.  The white underbelly along with black decking reminiscent of feathers really appealed to me.

But I'm also considering this one in cherry:

We'll see how it goes.  No need to worry about the finish this early in the game.

The observant reader will notice an abundance of links embedded in this posting.  For the rest of you look again and see if you can spot them.  Enjoy!

* It's probably a good idea to mention that the term "stripper" referrers to any boat built using the strip built method as opposed to skin-on-frame, stitch & glue, etc...  Not what whatever it was you were thinking.

Delay

I ordered supplies including forms and a strongback almost two weeks ago but they aren't shipping until today and one of the tools I'll need early on is backordered.  Looks like at least another week before I can get going unless by some miracle UPS delivers on Friday.  My planned start date was October 15th but it'll have to be pushed back until this weekend at the earliest. My planned completion date is April 1, 2012.

While I have allowed a little delay room in the schedule for unplanned holdups starting late doesn't bode well.  I'm already anticipating a delay in glassing.  The kayak should be ready for fiberglass starting in January but the temperatures may be a bit on the low side.  The epoxy needs to be at 80 - 85 degrees and the room temperature at least 70 to get a clear cure.  Average highs that time of year are 57 so I have a ceramic space heater to make up the difference.  If we have a cold winter in South Carolina then that could push the epoxy application back into February or even March.

The only thing I can really start on is trimming the lumber to size for scarfing so I guess I'll go ahead a do that this weekend.  I also need to work on getting a thickness planer set up.  Oh well.  At least clamps arrived...

Clean

Ahhh.  Now I have a clean garage.  Everything was removed, washed and replaced or stored elsewhere.  I have some space to work!

All of the materials I'll need to start have been ordered and should arrive late this week or early next week.  The lumber needs to be matched up, scarfed, planed and ripped.  I'll probably scarf 2/3 of the wood upfront.  After that it can be done as needed.  Since the boards are various sizes I'm considering cutting them so they'll be a consistent width.  Doing so will make scarfing and planing easier but it'll increase my waste.  I have 36bf of lumber and already expect 10bf in waste just from scarfing and ripping.  The kit manufacturer ships about 16bf of strips so I expect to need at least that much.  If my waste goes over 15bf I'll start to get worried.  I hope to have enough wood left over to build a paddle and maybe a small kayak equipment storage box.

I went ahead and built strongback and form supports ahead of receiving them.  One of the stands is taller than the other but can be reworked as necessary so I have a comfortable work height.  In addition to the two stands I have two folding work tables and two sawhorses I can use.

The lumber on the stands hasn't been touched since I got it home with the exception of the one piece on the left.  I hand planed and sanded a little bit just to get a feel for the wood and see how it looked without the weathered surface.  It's very easy to sand and planing is a breeze.  I still can't get over how light it is.  Amazing stuff paulownia.

I've also received the first construction injury.  While swapping out the rough cut blade on my miter saw for a finish blade I took a nasty gash on the tip of my right thumb.  It's pretty deep but nothing a little super glue can't fix.

My best friend and build partner, Stella, is guarding the garage from the evil cats next door.  Good doggie.