Petrel

In 2010 I started making a strip-built Petrel sea kayak using cedar strips, fiberglass and Carbon-Kevlar Cloth. I documented much of the process on video and below are the short videos I produced showing many of the building techniques incorporated. The above video provides a quick overview, follow the links below for more detailed looks at the individual steps.

I put together this 5 minute video to provide a broad overview of the strip-building process. My other videos go into a lot more detail, but if you want to see a quick synopsis of the whole project, this should help you out.

While many people mount these hip-braces or as I call them "cheek plates" so they extend from the deck and are attached to the hull at the bottom as well. I prefer to just have them attached to the deck. In this way I don't get a hard spot in the hull that might cause cracks as the boat flexes. I prefer to just cantilever them straight down and glass them in with a good fillet on each side.

I've got mixed feelings about deck lines. All those pieces of string running around the deck mess up the beauty of the wood, but if you should end up swimming next to the boat for some reason, having something to grab onto may save your life. I am even more ambivalent about hatch hold-down systems. Again, most systems mess up the lines of the boat, yet hatches are really useful for carrying gear.

I put together a couple small photo books showing an overview of the building process for my Nymph canoe and Petrel kayak. I orginally made these to bring to shows to help explain to people how I make my boats. I got a fair number of requests from people who wanted a copy of the books, so I've put the books up on Lulu.

Preparation

The hole pretty much defines the shape so cutting the hole accurately is step one. Since that step the boat has been fiberglassed and the rough edges left over from that need to be cleaned up.

You don't need to see more sanding, but that is what needs to happen before glassing the inside so I kept the sanding footage to a minimum in this video. Next I added a fillet in the chine. The Petrel has a hard chine aft of the cockpit, while it doesn't need a fillet adding one will strengthen the corner and make it easier to lay in the fabric.

Like the feature line on the deck, I wanted to have a bright maple accent along the sheer line between the deck and hull. Since the feature on the deck was in the middle of a stained area I had to stain the accent strip and then scrape the stain off.

At the start of the day I went into the shop and turned the heat up to 80° F (27° C) and made sure the lamp I keep on my epoxy to keep it warm was turned on. This assures the epoxy flows easily.

I rolled the cloth out on the boat about an hour before I started glassing. I could have done it earlier, but I did want to give it some time to warm up to room temperature.

I posted a long article about staining about a week ago, and here is some video to accompany it.

I'm using the Behlens Solar-Lux dye (Cordovan Mahogany), but I wanted to keep the added color a little light so I thinned the stain heavily with denatured alcohol.