Charles Treichel

My Christmas present was the book by Jeff on Fuseloge Frame Boats. Having built 4 other small craft all with different techniques, I thought it might be an enjoyable project to try a skin-on boat. My last project was from Harry Bryan's plans for "Fiddlehead", a 12' decked kayak, ostensably for my wife Dianne. Unfortunately I went a little overboard on materials and it came out too heavy, about 60#. I will be doing the lofting and the frames from my home in Madison, WI but plan on finishishing up during the summer at our place on Fidalgo Island, Anacortes, WA. I am going to try to post something every week, but its going to bog down from time to time as I have a trip plannned mid March, and then some time driving to WA by who knows what route. I do not plan on following the plans religiously, just the basic offsets. No offense; I just have some ideas I would like to try out. One of my objectives is to try to utilize alternate good materials that will reduce the cost and hopefully make amatuer boatbuilding more palatable to those who are turned off by some of todays prices. In the old days taking on a boat project often was ofter for reasons of economic necessity; today, if all you want is a boat, there are plenty of perfectly functional plastic ones on the market for as little as $300 or so. But with marine plywood at over $150/sheet, tiny copper brads at .10 each, paint and varnish at over $50/qt, to say nothing at the cost of bronze fittings, etc., it is easy to understand why one could be discouraged on the idea before even getting out of the blocks. Of course, no matter how you build this kayak, it shouldn't be all that costly anyway, as it doesn't consume that much wood skin and fabrics in the first place.

I have used some stuff for a variety of projects called "Integra-Ply" which is underlayment for tile floors. I think it is similar to baltic birch. There are no voids and it uses exterior glue. 1/4" is 5ply and 1/2" is 7 ply. In my opinion it is a quality product, but I wish I knew more about its resistance to decay or breakdown. It seems to me that it is a cost effective solution for boats that do not remain in the water.

Will do. This is my 5th small boat. I am building it because I want to try something different. My last boat built from plans by Harry Bryan was a decked canoe. Fiddlehead 12'. I got a little carried away on materials and it weighed almost 60#!

My mistake. My copier smudged out a digit on the previous station making it look off by 1/4" (I copy the offsets from my book to use in the shop). Sorry for the confusion.

I am working from the 2011 edition of the book. Pg 61 shows the bow offsets in inches. Pg 63 also shows them also in inches, not mm. The patterns are coming out looking like the picture on pg 57, using my judgement as to what the z dimension should be at x=4, 1-15/16, not 2- 3/16 which creates a 1/4 dip where the picture shows as straight. No problem, but I am worried about other possible errors. The stringer notching is charted on the stern upright, but not on the bow; I'll just notch it for what the stringer turns out to be. On pg 43 you show tabs on the stern upright. Do the loftings allow material to do the same, or is this just for the kit plans?

It seems one of the problems with "luan" is that no one seems to know what it actually is. Some say meranti; some say balau, totally different properties. Anyway, I have ruled it out mostly because I am not sure it will hold up. Although it is twice as heavey as cedar, it is also about twice as strong so I could appropriately reduce the cross section.. I'll make up a test piece and see how it behaves. Here are some good websites (there are many others) on properties of a wide variety of woods. http://www.plantra.com/Portals/0/docs/average-heartwood-decay-resistance-usda-forest-service.pdf http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplgtr/fplgtr190/chapter_05.pdf

Just finished lofting and believe I have found an error. (Checked the first 8 pages and didn't find it) Pg 61, new edition, Bow offsets, second line down shows x=4, z=2- 3/16. Hope I am not missing something, but I think it should be 1-15/16. Pg 33 shows the frames with stringers more or less flush. Pg 34 and 35 show the stringers somewhat outside the frames, which is where I believe they were intended to be. In any case there is no discussion of what the outside radius of the stringers should be, but I think I will be rounding them off to 1/4 or so radius. I've been toying with the idea of making the stringers out of 1/2 x 1" white oak (partially because I have lots of it) Weight would be about the same. The oak is incredibly strong and bends nicely. Also wondering about the properties of luann (meranti???) molding which is sold in strips 1/4 x 1-1/2. (I would laminate two of these to make 1/2". Varying data and opinions on its resistance to decay. Any comments on this would be appreciated.