Abyssdncr

Cut the seat slats and got them routed, carved some spare stringer stock to fit and reinforce the chine stringers for the footrests, and made a mounting ring for the little 6" hatch. The hatch is a tight squeeze, but ought to serve its purpose nicely. I will need to stitch a curve in the seam to go around it though - the inner most mounting screw goes right smack in the middle of the aft deck stringer. Had to go with the premium 6oz, since the heavy stuff is OOS. I'm still concerned about the coaming area since the coaming ring is too stiff to flex and the fabric not shrinking, but I guess time will tell.

Jeff, with the 6 oz. would you still recommend starting at the coaming and double stitching toward the bow & stern, or sewing the tips, stretching it on, and sewing tip to the middle?

Ok, doesn't really count as today is it's tomorrow now...but stringers completely lashed, frame is off the strongback, and I'm being lazy and just gluing the tips. Tomorrow is footrest supports, hatch support, seat slats, and LOTS of sanding left to do on the coaming, mostly on the inside. Let's just hope I don't get to te point that I bust out the dremel sanding drums... In the interim, I got the tail and right side striping finished on the FreeB. The 3M "edge" tape worked perfectly! Left side tomorrow too, and then the rest of the deck rigging.

The strongback is two EAA standard work benches built to the same height stacked end to end and toe nailed together with 3" deck screws. Not 100% plate glass flat, but far truer than my construction capabilities... Fortunately, the local Tandy leather store stocks some artificial sinew that seems more or less like the same stuff Jeff sells, so I don't have to wait on the mail. Down side (or bright side?) is that I have enough to build 5 boats now... Hope to get the gunwales lashed and pop the frame off the strongback tonight to finish the keel lashes. That'll free up work space to cut the seat slats and...(I dunno if this is a good idea or not, but I bought a little hatch to plug in somewhere for phone storage)...hatch support structure. Also had some hot pinkish "Coral Reef" wood stain mixed up at Lowes for the coaming, rub strips, & toggles. Ought to be cute, right? Well, at least if I can get all the Titebond III drips and oozes sanded off. Still mulling over the fabric issue. I wasn't real thrilled with how the economy fabric accepted the paint on the FreeB. I had lots and lots of pinholes even after three coats with roller, brush, fervent prayer, etc. Finally ended up sealing the most belligerent offenders with some Rustoleum spray sealing primer, letting it half dry and then more or less squeegeeing it into the pinhole. Had to use the same technique on a few others with the yellow paint as well. Needless to say, it's a 30 ft. paint job... That said, I already bought some of the economy 6 oz. for this boat... The new 6 oz seems like a no brainer, but the "no shrinkage left" part has me a little apprehensive about how the coaming area would turn out. The heavy stuff seems to have the tight weave, will shrink, and may be better for the kiddo to drag around the lake this summer and would add what, about 1.5 lbs to the overall finished product?

Chine stringers lashed in but for the little frames at each end. Gunwales sanded, routed, zipped on, and fit. Got two lashings on before running out of steam for the night. Need more sinew...

Got the deck and keel all lashed in except for the bracket locations, chine stringers sanded, routed, cut, fit, and zip tied in. The kiddo even lashed her first knot tonight...and I found time for a couple laps around the lake tonight. Not a bad evening! Junky weather tomorrow, so hopefully I'll have the rest of the stringers lashed and the gunwales zipped on by the end of tomorrow. Need to cut the seat slats tomorrow too. Think I'll put the girl to work finishing the slats prior to installation and sand away on the coaming til her arms ache while I work the joint lashings. Made a mistake though, not paying attention to reading the instructions... I wondered what all those screw locations were for, and then just pressed on sanding off the templates and gluing all the plywood coaming rings together. Guess this one will just be stitched in place instead of the 2-piece install, which is too bad as I was really looking forward to trying that method once I saw how it is supposed to work. Next one maybe...

Can't help with the question at large, but that frame looks beautiful!

Got the brackets cut, leveled, and mounted on the work table(s), stringers and gunwales ripped, and started lashing a couple frames to the keel. Pretty sure I got lucky with the lumber and will get away without having to do any scarfs. We'll see how the week goes, but I might have a FROG by the weekend!

Put another couple hours in out in the water today. Think I have the pinholes taken care of now!

Nicely played! I love showing my wife these pictures, saying, "See, we have plenty of room for me to build another boat!"

Has anyone finished one of these? Pics?

Got color on the front half and bottom, just need to finish the tail and stripes. But damn, if I'm not still fighting pinholes... 40 minutes out tonight and I took on about half a gallon. Actually watched one of them between laps around the lake... On the bright side, the Attwood spray skirt works great on the FreeB and kept me dry this evening in the chilly winds.

Still no more progress on the actual boat, but perhaps the most important part of the project got accomplished last night. Life jackets showed up in yesterday's mail. I tried mine on, adjusted it, hung it in the closet, and went to gather the cane pole and worms. I managed to get one bluegill before she showed up on the bank, life jacket on, giving me puppy dog eyes... She's had one prior paddling experience at a summer camp in a canoe, but nothing in a kayak before. So, back to the shore I went. Got her in, adjusted the foot rests, and gave it a shove out into the water. After about 10 minutes of slow deliberate experimentation, she disappeared across the lake. I should have brought a lawn chair... 45 minutes of forward, backward, circles, leaning, deep strokes, shallow strokes, sprints, glides...I get my boat back, and she just giggles around the house for another hour. I think she's hooked, and I better get to ripping some stringers!

What's driving the question - do you just have a bunch of it on hand? My first time builder feedback for whatever it's worth... I love building things, love the structure, the joinery, the pragmatic, practical, utilitarian, and artistic touches folks make to an otherwise already elegant design. And a little piece of me cries when it all gets covered up, because now only you can truly appreciate what is hidden beneath. That little piece of me cries a lot louder and longer when a poor covering job betrays the underlying craftiness and sweat equity. I'm still working on getting the economy 6 oz poly (that was certainly cheap enough) fully sealed and "finished", but I'm beginning to loathe chasing pinholes. That said, it sewed on wonderfully, was easy to keep the straight seams, and did a delightful job of maneuvering around the curves on my FreeB. Having already procured more 6 oz cheap stuff for the next build, I'm seriously reconsidering that decision in favor of the new 6 oz tight weave fabric in hopes that it will hold the paint and seal up far better. Moral of the story being that the frugal fart in me likes to dip my toe in the water of projects to try them out without getting too fiscally vested until I'm sure I really like it, but when a project goes really well but for whatever I cheaped out on, regret is present... Now, if you already have the stuff on hand, it's a no harm, no foul proposition to give it a try, but perhaps it might be wise to keep an escape plan in your head of what you'll do if it doesn't go according to plan. Once you get your frame all built, I bet the extra $50-$75 for the "best" stuff for a well executed completion won't even be a blip on your radar vs. ending where I did with a, "Well, I bet it will at least float..."

Hey, look what I found after work in less than 15 minutes - a small herd of unicorns!

I like it too. Gives me an idea for the Tadpole. I saw a guy who did a wicked sweet strip cedar deck on a S&G who just made a big "S" along the length of the deck with white cedar & red cedar having the center of the "S" at the cockpit. Not sure how much fun that would be to do on purpose with the stitched seam, but it would make a nice artsy to demarcation line for the colors. She picked out punk rocker pink and aqua-marine about a month ago for her trim colors.

After spending three different trips and at least as many hours looking for a good piece of wood to carve a GSP from, I finally gave up when Wal-mart put their 2 piece paddles on clearance for $17. So, yeah, stuffing that big curved blade under the bungie is working less than ideal. Probably more because I just eye-balled where I was putting the pad eyes instead of considering the blade width, but so it goes... OK, maybe I haven't "given up", but it's getting nice enough weather to get out and play, and that wasn't going to wait on me finding the unicorn of lumber at Lowe's, Home Depot, or Menards. I imagine my newly acquired in anticipation of block plane, spoke shave, and sureform can keep gathering dust in the Amazon box they showed up in until that unicorn arrives. (Although, I did read today that perhaps Unicorns may have, in fact, existed...so maybe not all hope is lost!) Hobby Lobby yielded at least a better paint brush than my Harbor Freight 2" chip brushes, so perhaps I can start lofting graphics tonight. Maybe a beer or two will keep my hand steady. If not, at least then I won't care so much!

With some renewed motivation, I got some freshly discovered pinholes sealed up and the rope lip sewed onto the coaming last night. Few more decisions to make with respect to functional utilization. I need the ability to hang it from the rafters, but didn't drill holes in the frame prior to covering. Thinking about some commercial grab handles laterally mounted on the bow and stern ends of the gunwales. Also about to try to put some color on it, anyone find a masking method that actually works on fabric? Blue tape had a few failures around the coaming that I need to go back and touch up... Looks like most just use their bungee systems for paddle retention, but has anyone tried a commercial plastic paddle clip? Since one of the major drivers for this boat was a kiddo entertaining herself with a fishing pole, I thought one of those would be a lot simpler and easier to utilize. I ordered a lightweight folding anchor as well. What deployment options exist besides an anchor trolley to run the rope off the bow or stern without too much hassle for fishing? Compromised on purpose built really nice paddling PFD vs. Walmart Stearns offerings with the Onyx Movevent jackets. Should be n tomorrow. I should have had one on Sunday as I'm pretty sure hypothermia would have kicked in before I could have made it to shore in several places, and I won't let the girl give it a shot without one. Surely, it won't sink if she tips it over by herself in the middle of the lake, right? To be continued...

Maiden voyage on an Easter that started with 2" of snow on the ground. Guess I can justify working on some graphics now. Spent about 45 min. messing about the neighborhood lake. Didn't seem to take on any more water than what I splashed into it paddling, so I guess that's a win, but I had a lot of trouble getting a few spots to take the paint and wasn't too sure what was going to happen. Thanks Jeff for the lofts! Time to get started on that Tadploe soon!

Having stalled out a couple times on my S&G CLC Wood Duck Double, the SOF build style is way more fun and faster. That said, if you have to go S&G, check out the roomier Wood Duck series. I'm about* to finish up my FreeB which has a very roomy cockpit, even for me at 6'5". You might take a look at the Mess About series as well if ease of entry is of primary concern.

Coaming on and skin ironed.

Ok, completely contrary to what I posted last, I started experimenting with shrinking the fabric yesterday. My feline quality inspector decided to walk the deck at some point and left little paw print impressions from bow to stern. No joy with an iron - does it need to be turned up to 11? I also played with the heat gun a bit with positive results (no more paw prints), but I'd sure feel safer with the iron...

Stitching done but for the coaming. Finally got some rippling to the fabric on the back half. Still lots of work to go with the coaming, and I'm not proud of the amount of planing and power belt sanding that took place...but it's making progress. Decided to be lazy and bought 8' of 5/8" black poly rope to sew on for the lip.

No ironing yet. Just rolling everything tight and holding the cords together prior to stitching. 6-8 stitches, reposition, repeat keeping the needle angle toward the end with each stitch. Still don't have the coaming done. LOTS of gaps in the laminations, and the Titebond takes forever to dry... No ironing until after it's installed.