Abyssdncr

Bulkheads fabbed and installed. 8" hatch for the front and 6"x12" for the back. Fore and aft compartment inwales and deck supports in or drying. Ever forward...never enough clamps...

Yes, it'll shrink some more.

Outwales positioned, sheer set, and Kevlar is in.

At this point, some pics of where you're at might be helpful Todd.

Chris, I had to come home and check my copy of the book to confirm my suspicions. 22" wide sounds awfully tender for a "beginner" kayak. I got into a couple 25" kevlar boats in 14', 15', and 17' over this last season and couldn't be nearly as sloppy as I can with my tupperware or FreeB. Probably more depends on your intended adventures though, calm water protected lake vs. river/creek vs. open sea. I have a Curlew design on my someday to-do list for something that I could explore learning to roll, knowing that some river trips would definitely tip me over occasionally with the current, but the tradeoff in stability for speed sounds fun. My daughter slipped into the Tadpole (19" wide with a bit of rocker) with very little experience and it took 3 or 4 trips out before she could maintain the balance for full strength paddling, but now she's like a fish in it on the lake...but has no desire to use it on flowing water. For starting, I'd keep with the designs in the 25"-28" wide range and closer to 15+ ft. (Mess About, Castaway, Vardo) depending on just how open of a cockpit you'd like and whether the notion of fishing appeals to you. Part of that is why I have 5+ boats for me with a 6th on the way. My fishing tupperware gets the most action hands down, but it's boring tupperware. My Wood Duck is awesome loaded for camping or tandem...as long as there are no rocks in the water and there are places for careful put-ins and take-outs. But if you don't have hard obstacles to avoid, the skin boats fly and are half the weight of everything else and just so darned cool. He has lofts for the Mess About 12 in his second book too. Also a good read. So, back to you, what is your intended use?

Tim, Did the iron to any good? After flipping mine upside down now for a bit, about half the bubbles have gone away. Still haven't tried popping them yet though.

Chris, I'd nudge you toward the Mess About 15 or Castaway for stability and extra "cargo" carrying ability. I did a FreeB 12 last year as my first boat, then built a couple-few more with Jeff's and another designer's plans. First of all, FreeB is a great handling design & a bit simpler to build. Plus bumping the material sizes up to the larger recommendations for strength is no big deal when you're lofting everything from scratch. And...at 230 lbs dressed I still had the ability to throw a small child in my lap and paddle around a bit, but she was riding low in the water like that. However...dude, the plans are worth the price just from the low-to-no-frustration frame of reference & peace of mind. Everything just fits like a glove if you do your part. Also, I've built from a couple different plans offerors and will continue to trumpet that Jeff's plans are excellent and totally speed up the build time. Of course, if you're the kind of guy that takes as much or more pride in doing it all from scratch, that's a moot point, but if you wanna get out and play for summer time, plans are the way to go. I think my two from plans were 2 months from plans to painted in the water, and my FreeB 12 was closer to 4 months and WAY over budget mostly due to finding good sources of timber and a few mistakes here & there. Now, I'm onto a 16' solo canoe for even more cargo capability for river camping trips. So, for testing the waters for construction style & reducing the "initial" investment, FreeB is great. If you're looking for a boat that will best meet your needs, I'd definitely recommend going with something in the 15' or bigger (Vardo, perhaps?). All that said - what are your primary priorities and objectives for the build? That might call for a revised recommendation... Cheers,

Off the mold yesterday morning, and still in one piece! Carbon scraper fun time now, and then back on the mold to fill the lap gaps with epoxy and fair the low spots. Will be working on ripping and scarfing gunwale stock in the down time. If I were feeling so ambitious as to cedar strip the fore & aft deck, what would be a good thickness for the strips? Plans call for 1/8" ply, but since they're so small and aren't complex geometrically, relatively speaking, I thought it might be a good spot to try my hand at strips. Since the decks and gunwales will be the only parts of the boat not painted, it should make for a nice visual accent as well. Pretty nice feeling of accomplishment to have the shell off the tool in 6 weeks from starting from nothing but a spreadsheet in the back of a book to now, but then I made my list of next steps...and it's still a LONG list of to-dos - almost took the wind right out of my sails...

A bit more progress. Should get the last panel on the hull tomorrow.

One panel on and trimmed. Kinda late at this point, but is this what gains are supposed to look like?

Managed to wrestle the first layer off the tool last night and get it repostioned back in the same spot. Rather glad I didn't wait till it was all built for that. Definitely need to do a better job of cleaning up epoxy for the next few planks. First couple gains are cut, but I'm awaiting a bull nose plane for the rest. Should arrive tomorrow. My freehand chisel skills aren't the greatest and the Shinto rasp is taking a toll on my fingers. Test fit the plank to the other side, looked good and traced a copy. Should get them both on over the weekend.

No 4th layer. The lip is covering the holes appearance from the outside, but you can clearly see the fabric and stitches inside the coaming. I'll take a better pic tonight.

I got it pretty well faired if you can tell in the top pic, but it was a process...and there are still a spattering of pinhole sized spots yet to address. But, mostly, I'm just claiming this forum's 40,000ths post with this reply! ?

99% done with sand and fill. I wasn't really sure what the proper protocol was for the inevitable low spots, so I just spot skimmed with micro-balloons. I really didn't want to coat the whole thing just to turn around and sand almost all of it back off. Is there a better way at this stage? Graphite powder in the epoxy - neat, huh? Next plank getting fitted. Overlap is finished to final size and faired with a long board. Time to cut gains for the first time. ? Still need to check fit on the other side to see if it's a good enough to just use as a pattern to make a copy. Also thinking of perhaps wrestling the hull off the mold to see if I have any major sticking spots. I waxed all the battans quite well, but I'm sure it will require persuasion still.

Yup, what PAR said. I wanted to build something I could get out and use on the Arkansas River, which means occasionally getting stuck on low water sand a bouncing off a log and/or rock along the way. From what I researched, this combo seemed to get the most votes for toughness and durability. Cutting through the xynole hasn't slow my plane down at all to speak of on the lengthwise bevels prepping for the next plank, so I hope the gain cuts follow suit. For now though, I'm stuck in the sand and fill do-loop that seems to never end.... I'm hoping this morning's filler skim coat will be sufficient to get back to the fun stuff. The double scarfed 17' panel is just waiting patiently.

42 oz of epoxy later, the Xynole is on. Gonna need a few more fill coats...

Looks good, Dan! What are you planning for skin?

Ready to tape the bottom seams. A minor error on each side trimming or fitting, but overall I'm pleased thus far.

After a bit off a hiatus, the first plank is down and drying.

Mine is the 6 oz premium, ironed.

Here's what mine is doing...

The Tadpole I have suspended from the ceiling actually did the same thing to me over the winter. I flipped it upside down in the straps a couple weeks ago and a little bit of it seems to be coming back out. My guess and my hope is that when the warmer weather gets here they'll shrink back down.

I kid you not, I looked at that last batch of photos and smelled cedar.... Beautiful boat!

I did 3 boats with this the economy fabric - FreeB and the two Kidyaks - it's doable, but as mentioned, is accompanied with more than it's fair share of frustration. Took FOREVER to get all the pinholes in FreeB sealed. Pretty sure the Kidyak I tried to pre-seal with Loctite PL premium still has a few pinholes. However, the other Kidyak that I just varnished for a translucent finish sealed quite nicely with three coats. While I did learn my lesson on FreeB, I wasn't going to throw any more money than absolutely necessary for the 7 & 9 year olds.

While shopping for one more kayak to build, I got distracted by the romantic lines of David Nichols line of Lutra decked canoes and decided to go for it. Bought his book, Tom Hill's book & video and started putting things together. This will be my second build with plywood and first attempt at lapstrake. The Lutra II is the 16' version, and I'm punching the forward bulkhead one station forward for extra leg room to sleep in on the camping trips and legroom for when I have an extra kiddo along for the ride. I'm blending some of Tom's approach to tool construction to David's assembly instructions. So far, this is everything I enjoyed with SOF building combined with all the fun of woodworking, and no stitches, stapes, or lashings to contend with, and only a marginal amount of epoxy. Plan is 6mm ply bottom, 4mm ply sides, and 3mm ply decks, WRC for the hardwood bits, Xynole for the bottom outside panels & kevlar on the inside. I'm also keeping a daily build log of dates, activities, time, and *gasp* costs so when I get all those, "How long did that take?" or "What's something like that cost to build?" I can actually have some semi-factual information to respond with. I'm struggling with lighting, as you will see. I added some nice LED shop lights and can't find a balance of the right amount of light - it's either so bright that the wood goes white, or I kill the lights and let the flash take over for a smidge of detail in the pics. I'll work on it... Pics of the progress so far (about 38 hrs into it...):