In this series of videos I document the building of a pair of mahogany strip-planked microBootleggers. I built these boats for a customer who wanted "book-matched" mahogany strips and a carbon fiber interior built without staples.
I start out the videos with the milling of the strips. I got some beautiful mahogany, the only problem was it was over 2" thick, and I wanted strips less than 1" wide, so I had to do a lot of work to get the strips into usable dimensions without wasting much. Because the mahogany is relatively heavy and quite expensive, I milled the strips to 1/8" thickeness. This allowed me to get more strips out of the wood and keep the weight of the wood low.
I carefully keep the strips in the order they came off the plank so I can install them on the boat in the same order. I did not cove-and-bead the strips, instead I hand beveled each as needed to fit on the forms.
The techniques I used here are choosen to achieve that result. Please note that there are many "correct" was to do this, if you are viewing these videos as a reference prior to or during the building your own boat, don't feel you need to do it exactly the way I did it here just because I chose to do it this way. In my books, The Strip-Built Sea Kayak or Building Strip-Planked Boats, I may describe doing things in a slightly different manner. The steps described in the books work and may well be easier for the purposes of building your own boat
- Cutting Strips
- Ripping and Sorting Strips
- Cutting Forms for a Strip-Planked Kayak
- Setting Up Forms
- Shaping Internal Stems
- Installing the First Strips
- Repairing a Damaged Strip
- Continuing Stripping the Kayak
- Stripping the Bottom Part One
- Trimming the Keel Line
- Fixing a Popped Seam
- Stripping the Bottom Part Two
- Fixing a Broken Seam
- Closing the Bottom
- Applying a Fill Coat
- Sanding the Hull
- Fitting a Cockpit Recesss
- Fiberglassing the exterior of the Coaming
- Removing White Lines
- Fiberglassing the Hull
- Glassing the Interior of the Coaming
- Installing a Solid Outer Stem
- The Cotton Swab Test
- Joining the Deck and Hull and Taping the Inside Seam
- Releasing Forms in Staple Free Construction
- Laminating the Coaming Lip
- Stripping the Back Deck
- Laying Carbon Fiber Cloth on the Deck Interior
- Straightening a Crooked Seam
- Installing a Center Accent Line on the Deck
- Cutting the Cockpit Recess
- Fairing and Glassing the Deck
- Installing the Coaming Riser
- Smoothing the Deck Interior
- Smoothing the Hull Interior
- Smoothing the interior of a strip planked boat with a scraper and sandpaper
- The Process of Building a Wooden Kayak
- Trimming off the Excess Glass