The Strip-Built Sea Kayak
"Three Rugged Boats You Can Build"
By Nick Schade
Published by Ragged Mt Press, a division of McGraw-Hill
|
|
The Strip-Built Sea Kayak"Three Rugged Boats You Can Build"By Nick Schade |
Strip-building is the most flexible, forgiving, and attractive way to build a small wood boat. Professional sea kayak builder Nick Schade presents complete plans and measurements for three kayaks:
This book has all the information you'll need to learn how to build a sturdy, elegant sea kayak, from setting up shop to making a paddle.
This book, written by Nick Schade, the designer behind Guillemot Kayaks, describes how to build a rugged and beautiful sea kayak using strips of wood, fiberglass and epoxy. At 200 pages it is richly illustrated with photographs and drawings, making each step of building clear and understandable. Three different kayak designs are included in the book: an easy to build, easy to paddle single; a beautiful, high performance single; and a comfortable, stable tandem.
The strip-building process, some times called wood-strip or cedar-strip/epoxy, is very forgiving. A first time builder can be confident of creating a boat that functions well and looks beautiful even if they make mistakes. Not only can you construct a beautiful water craft, you can go beyond, to a crafting a functional work of art. The book provides instructions in techniques for bringing your craft to that next level.
On these web pages you will find information about the book, supplements, additions, and corrections (there are bound to be some) and answers to your questions.
If you purchase a copy of The Strip-Built Sea Kayak through Guillemot Kayaks you will receive the latest copy of Nick Schade's Kayak Building Notes.Strip-building - assembling a pile of thin wood strips into a functional hull - has been a popular canoe-building method for many years. Now boatbuilder Nick Schade, an engineer by training and a self-professed sea kayaking addict, has refined this time-tested method to build the more complex shapes of sea kayaks. The method is simple, forgiving, allows a liberal amount of design flexibility, and requires a minimum number of tools. Its also relatively inexpensive: about $400 to $500 for one of the designs discussed here--one-quarter the price of a factory-built model. In The Strip-Built Sea Kayak, Schade presents full plans for three elegant designs inspired by the grace and seaworthiness of the Inuit and Aleut skin boats. Profusely illustrated instructions provide the details that will guide you through the process. A complete novice will be able to construct a finished kayak after reading nothing but this book. And for an experienced builder, the techniques here can be expanded to create the perfect boat for you.
This is the Table of Contents for the book The Strip-Built Sea Kayak. The links lead to supplemental information on the subjects.
Strip-building
is the art of taking a stack of small strips of wood and converting it into
a beautiful and durable water craft. This process has been a popular
method of making canoes for years. It is easily within the means of the average
do-it-yourselfer. It does not require a large investment in specialized tools
or a long apprenticeship to achieve a beautiful
result.
I have been paddling since I was a kid. Mainly in my parents canoe and a kayak my father had made from a kit. When I got out of college, I wanted a boat of my own. I had read about the idea of a "sea kayak", but had never seen one. It sounded like the ideal vessel. It combined the fun of my father's little kayak with the place I best enjoyed paddling. The problem was, being a typical college student, I didn't have enough money to buy one.
A couple years previously, my father bought a book, Building a Strip Canoe, by Gil Gilpatrick,
and I helped my brother build a canoe from this book. I figured that I could
probably make a decent kayak using this the strip method. I researched everything
I could find out about sea kayaks and thought about what I wanted to be doing
on the water. Then, on the floor of my parents dining room, I drew up a kayak.
This kayak took form in the basement of my brothers house. With couple trips
out on the waters of the Maine coast, I was hooked. My brother tried it and
he was hooked. He took my forms and built a kayak of his own. His friend tried
it and was soon building one of his own as well.
From that beginning I learned about sea kayaking. My growing kayaking skills, the inevitable flaws in any first boat and the fun I had building the boat, incited an urge to build another kayak. I am now deeply addicted to both sea kayaking and kayak building.
I build my own boats to use "hard". I want a kayak that performs well in a wide variety of conditions from backwaters to surf. I have refined my designs to the highest performance standards. I include three designs in this book.
For the beginner I have a design that has served me well for ten years. This is a stable, comfortable, easy-to-build kayak. Due to the simplicity of the lines, this design can be adapted from a small paddle boat to a roomy two-person kayak.
The second boat is a high performance design suitable for intermediate and skilled kayakers wanting a boat for day use and overnight trips. This design provides the builder more of a challenge than the first kayak. Influenced by the kayaks of Greenland, this boat would look good when made of plastic and painted white, but is spectacular when made of wood.
Many builders want a boat they can share with a friend. The third boat fills this desire. Based on the high performance lines of the second design, this boat is a comfortable tandem.
The body of the book is a comprehensive description of the building process. Books that leave out crucial details can be very frustrating. It is my intention to help a complete novice construct a finished kayak after reading nothing but my book. I describe alternate methods for builders who feel the initial description is beyond their ability and urge the experimenter to take risks. It is important to describe why a step is performed a certain way so the builder can make an educated choice.
An large part of the fun of building kayak with wood is the beauty of the finished product. The wood alone is beautiful. The thin flexible strips provide a unique medium for getting creative. With the natural contrasts available in wood the builder has the opportunity to enhance the design of the kayak beyond the inherent grace and style of a kayak built of wood. I offer techniques to get the builder with an artistic bent started on making a kayak that is more than just a nice boat.
I include a discussion of the design considerations required to choose the right kayak either from my designs in this book or from other sources. I do not dwell on technical terms but give practical advice on what the builder should look for.
The tools required to strip build a kayak are basic. Many of the tools are commonly found in the do-it-yourselfer's toolbox. Selection of the right tools will ease the building process. I discuss what is important to look for when selecting new tools and how to get the most out of tools the reader already has.
One of the most difficult tasks when building a boat is finding sources of the specialized materials. The materials are not hard to get when you know where to look. I provide a list of reliable sources and offer suggestions on where too look for other suppliers.
I urge builders not to sweat the details. The reason to build the boat is to get out on the water. I am addicted to building boats and paddling the boats I build. I want to spread the disease.
Here is a step-by-step overview of the process of building a strip kayak. The numbers following each step are pages numbers where the step is described in more detail. While building a kayak may at first appear to be a big task, it can easily be broken down into a series of small manageable tasks. None of these steps are beyond the capability of the average person who has ever wielded modest hand tools.
1. Cut 1/4" strips off a 3/4" cedar, redwood or pine plank.
2. Optional: Mill a "cove" and "bead" on each edge of the strips.
3. Obtain a fairly straight 2 x 4.
4. Draw out the building forms at full size.
5. Glue the drawings to a sheet of plywood (or particle board).
6. Cut out the forms from the plywood.
7. Thread the forms on to the 2 x 4.
8. Check alignment of the forms and secure them in place.
9. With the boat upside-down, staple a strip along the sheerline.
10. Double check the alignment of the first strip.
11. Trim the ends of the strip.
12. Repeat steps 11 and 12 on the other side.
13. Apply carpenter's glue to the top of the strip installed in the previous step.
14. Install a strip on the glue and staple tightly it in place.
15. Trim the ends of this strip and install a strip on the other side.
16. Repeat steps 13 through 15 until the strips have extended up the side and just start covering the bottom.
17. Install strips down either side of the keel, tapering the ends to fit the existing strips.
18. Fit strips into the remaining gaps. Alternate between strips following the sheerline and strips following the keel line.
19. Flip the boat over into a cradle.
20. Install the first deck strip next to the first hull strip. Do not glue this strip to the hull, just staple it in place.
21. Install strips on either side of the centerline in a similar manner to step 17.
22. Strip in the rest of the deck in a similar manner to step 18. Do not strip all the way over the cockpit.
23. Remove all the staples from the deck and hull.
25. Install the coaming strips.
26. Scrape off any glue drips.
27. Plane the wood fair and smooth.
28. Sand the wood smoother.
29. Temporarily remove the deck from the forms.
30. With the hull side up, drape fiberglass over it.
31. Trim the fiberglass close to the sheer line.
32. Smooth the fiberglass with a brush.
33. Mix up a small amount of resin.
34. Pour the resin onto the middle of the hull and spread it with a squeegee.
35. Mix more resin and spread as needed. Use a brush to apply resin to dry spots.
36. Scrape off the excess resin with the squeegee.
37. Let the resin partially cure.
38. Apply fill coat of resin to the whole surface and let it cure.
39. Remove the hull from the forms and return the deck to the forms.
40. Repeat steps 30 through 39 for the deck.
41. Plane and sand the inside of the hull.
42. Fiberglass and resin the inside as you did the outside.
43. Trim off the bottom of the coaming inside the deck.
44. Plane, sand and fiberglass the inside of the deck.
45. Glue multiple laminations of hardwood around the coaming to create the lip.
46. Cut of the excess coaming above the lip, and sand smooth.
47. Install the cheek plates on the inside of the cockpit.
48. Fiberglass over the coaming lip.
49. Roughen the cured resin along the sheer line of the deck and hull with sandpaper.
50. Align the deck and hull together, securing with packing tape as you go.
51. Turn the boat onto one side and measure out some fiberglass tape for the inside seam.
52. Soak the tape in resin until it is completely saturated and then squeeze out excess.
53. Roll tape along the inside seam as far as you can reach by hand and push it the rest of the way with a stick.
54. Smooth the inside seam with a brush on the end of the stick.
55. After the first side cures repeat steps 51 through 54 for the other side.
56. Remove the packing tape on the outside.
57. Sand the outside seam smooth.
58. Lay fiberglass tape on the outside seam and resin it in place.
59. Drill holes to install footbraces
60. Sand the outside of the whole boat with 80 grit sand paper.
61. Apply an additional fill coat of resin in two stages to cover the deck and hull.
62. Sand with progressively finer paper up to 220 grit. Repeat step 61 if necessary.
63. With the boat on end, pour a small amount of filled resin into each end.
64. Varnish the boat.
65. Sand with fine sandpaper.
66. Repeat 64 and 65 until bored.
67. Install the seat, backrest, footbraces and other outfitting.
68. Find a suitable body of water
69. Paddle.
70. Repeat steps 68 and 69 until you're ready to build another.
71. Go back to step 1
I rarely build a kayak the same way twice, so it would be a lot for me to ask of you to follow this schedule to the letter. Use it as a basis for determining your up coming tasks. Don't get hung up on fears that taking some of the steps out of order will ruin the boat. With my first boat I was so impatient that I put the boat in the water (step 70) before I installed the cockpit coaming (step 25). Obviously, I had to rearrange the steps a bit, and I may have made my task more difficult in the end, but the boat came out great.
This page will include any updates or corrections to the information in the book. If you see any mistakes in the book, please let me know at Email Nick Schade.
The first printing had some small errors in the offsets for the Guillemot. There are a couple whacky numbers in the Keel row of the Buttocks numbers: These errors only show up in the first printing, if you purchased your book recently you should not need to make any changes.
|
Long Position (ft) |
1/2 |
16 |
16 1/2 |
|
Keel |
5.85 |
0.83 |
3.32 |
These corrections show up as yellow and red below.
The location of these mistakes in Figure 4-9 is shown in yellow and red below.
I did not include the section of the forms in the cockpit that you cut off in the book because it was not really necessary. If you want to include this, use the numbers in the table below, as shown in the green section above. Make the forms using these numbers to determining the top outline. Pre-cut the cockpit area at the height given for the cockpit recess and tack glue the top back onto the forms. These forms may help you get the strips fair around the cockpit area, but you can do it fine without these extra bits of form.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
These additions show up as blue and green above.
The location of the the cockpits in the Guillemot Double is not very clear. Page 187 gives some guidance of the placement, but if you need a place to start, the front of the front cockpit 6' - 3/4" from the bow and the back of the rear cockpit about 5' - 2 1/4" from stern should work well for many people.
 |
