New Here, Hi. Want to Build a Plywood Kayak

I'm an avid woodworker and have recently decided that I want to take on the next project of building a kayak. Boat building is a new avenue in my area of interest and I have researched both strip building and stitch and glue building.
For my first project, I'd like to build a stitch and glue kayak so I can get exposed to the process of glass and epoxy.
I have looked at a few plans online and I like the look of the Cirrus by One Ocean Kayak and the amount of free info and building pics offered on their website.
I live in Houston, so I have access to marine grade plywood. I have read countless pros and cons of using luan vs marine grade. Since I like the idea of my projects being of good enough quality to be around for a generation or two, I will use the marine grade ply.
I wanted to see if anyone on this forum has anything to offer in the way of a specific kayak kit to build. I'd like to utilize it primarily for expeditions, fishing, and would like for it to have the ability to handle a choppy surf.
Considering the size of the hull planks, I don't see any reason to have to loft plans, so I'd also like to attain plotter printed type patterns for cutting out the parts.
IF anyone could make some reccomendations on a good design, I'd be very grateful.
Thanks

 

Want to build a Plywood Kayak

Earlier this year, I finished up a Cape Charles by Chesapeake Light Craft. The plans for this one are obsolete, but CLC has a lot to choose from. You can see what I went through at http://nottingham-boathouse.blogspot.com.

Stuart Nottingham

 

I have paddled many of various brands of stitch and glue kayaks, and I think by far the best one is the Arctic Tern by Pygmy Kayaks. You will not be disappointed with it. They sell kits, well worth the cost, and I think plans for scratch building. The owner is very knowledgeable about kayak design.

I have built seven sea kayaks (all scratch built skin-on-frame), my first one when I was in High School over 30 years ago. I do not own a Pygmy, but I know many that do and several of their models I have paddled for extended distances. I would not change a thing on any of the Pygmy designs, all are excellent (which I can not say for some of the other deigns out there).

Their website is: http://www.pygmyboats.com/

 

Hi Petros,

Have you ever paddled a Guillemot Night Heron stitch and glue kayak? If so, can you tell me/us why you consider the Arctic Tern to be better?

I am asking because I designed my own kayak with inspiration from the Night Heron and I have not built it yet, so if there's a good reason for me to change the design to mimic the Arctic Tern then perhaps I should do this before starting construction.

 

Thanks for the reccomendation. The kits at pygmy boats seem to be an excellent bargain.

 

I have paddled some of the other Guillemot models, but not the Night Heron S-n-G. Based on my experience both with the other models, and some extensive email exchanges with Nick Schade, owner of Guillemot kayaks, several years ago, I would say the Arctic Tern is a much better design. Based on what Nick has written to me, I find that the owner of Pygmy kayaks is much more knowledgeable about design of hulls.

It depends on what you want of course, the Night Heron is much longer and narrower than the Arctic Tern, the Pygmy model has have a lot more volume for gear storage. Of course the only issue with performance has to do with the below water shape.

I like very narrow kayaks (20-21 in max), but I do not like very long ones because they are harder to maneuver in tight places and they are difficult to turn in general. The Arctic Tern balances good directional stablity and yet still is easy to turn without a rudder when you heel it over a bit. It is a good performing design (low drag), yet comfortably stable and still has good maneuverability.

I have not paddled a Night Heron, so I do not know how it performs, but looking at the design from the website there are a few things I would change if I was to build it. But I would start with a better design, one from a designer that I trust more. Nick may have indeed stumbled upon a good combination of features and performance with the Night Heron, but I am unfamiliar with its behavior in the water.

If you are bent on doing that design there is a quick and dirty test you can do. Cut out your forms and then lash full length stringers to them, and wrap the hull with plastic sheet and packing tape (we call that the "saran wrap test") and go out and try it out. If you use plywood forms cut out on a band saw, you can have something in the water in about 3 hours for about $20 worth of materials. Of course if you are an inexperienced sea kayaker you may not know what is good performance or not.

The amount of time and money to build even a kayak is so large I think it is best if you try them out before you build one. There are often gatherings at various places around the country of people that build kayaks where you can try out other people's kayaks before you build them. In the Puget Sound region we gather at Fort Warden State Part in Port Townsend the first weekend in August every year.

 

After comparing several of the companies out there that offer plans and kits, I've come to the conclusion that there is more markup for kits than what some of the companies want you to believe.

I can get 4mm Okoume for $52 for a 4'x8' sheet. Coupled with the average cost of full size plans being $100, what justifies the cost for an additonal average of $400 (on the low end) aside from CNC made parts?

From what I can gather, these kits are designed to give the average joe/jane a chance at building a kayak without having to worry about purchasing a sabre saw and sand paper. But, most of the sites I have viewed claim that by embarking on the journey with only the plans will not save one money in the end. Perhaps I shouldn't believe what I'm reading.

I can see where tracing plans, cutting parts, sanding edges can increase the amount of time it takes to complete a kayak, but one of the tradeoffs should be the ability to save a signifigant amount of money. Sure, glass cloth and epoxy will add to the amount invested in the project, but I cannot fathom a company including these products with the best interest of saving the customer money.

I guess what I'm eluding to is that I have the following resources:
Time, Powertools, Woodworking experience, Researching abilities, access to competitively priced products and resources and it would seem like buying plans on a proven kayak design, and then acquiring the require materials myself would definitley save me a great amount of money in the end, as well as give me the ability to incorporate my own aspects of a desired kayak along the way, vs. going the route of a kit.

Is this an accurate opinion on the matter?

 

sorry,,,im no help,,hehe,,, but just wanted ta say HIYAS and welcome to the forum

 

More than that, a kit eliminates the worry about cutting and shaping the panels correctly -- and some kits include the strongback system which also eliminates the worry about getting things set up properly ... so it's not just about saving money on tools and supplies, it is also about being able to build the boat properly with less possibility for the buyer to screw up.

This depends on the cost of the plans, but unless the plans are exhorbitantly priced I would say you're almost always going to save money -- not time -- by building from plans rather than a kit.

I agree ...

Yes of course!

 

Hi Petros, thanks for the reply ...

Okay thanks. There may be someone else who has paddled both boats but I think that finding him/her is going to be a real challenge ...

I want a relatively fast and efficient boat for nearshore use in the Pacific Ocean. I want an open cockpit and I'm willing to modify the design to provide this feature. I do not care about Eskimo rolling or internal volume since this will be strictly a day boat and never used for camping or overnight / weekend excursions.

The places I'll be paddling do not have many (or any?) tight places so I'm not very concerned about this feature myself.

I may be making a mistake by favoring Night Heron in terms of stability. I don't know if it will be 'comfortably stable' or not. But it is only 21 inches wide so it would seem to be an efficient boat, and the online reports I've read seem to bear this out.

Good suggestion, I never thought of doing something like this. I figured I would just 'build it' and test it out before covering it with glass and epoxy ... but maybe your suggestion makes more sense. I'll give it some more thought.

This is true, and I'm not an experienced kayaker. On the other hand I have very good balance in small boats so I think I will be able to come to a conclusion about the design relatively quickly this way. It also occurs to me that I could modify your testing technique and use cotton cloth instead of plastic, then just paint it -- and I would have a skin-on-frame kayak that might just be 'good enough' to use for a year or so as-is.

Actually my cost to build will be less than $100 per boat and this includes hiring a helper to do most of the cutting and fitting for me. This is possible because I'm located in the Philippines. It would not be the same if I were in the USA of course.

Unfortunately there is nothing going on here in terms of kayak building or testing, so although I wish I could go to one of the gatherings you mentioned that is simply not a possibility over here. In the Philippines I would be better off building both kayaks, just using the one I like best, and giving the other one to a friend or neighbor.

Petros, I am also considering the QCC 600 designed by John Winters. Do you have any personal experience in this boat? If so, how would you compare the QCC 600 to the Arctic Tern?

 

I am not familiar with the Winters QCC 600. He has a good reputation as a designer, thought once on a kayaking forum we had a number of words to exchange and I am not sure we were communicating well. So either he did not understand the very technical language I was using, or his considerable arrogance got in the way of exchanging ideas in a civil manner. A common problem with architects in general, both navel and land types unfortunately.

I am big on skin-on-frame kayaks, they are fast and inexpensive to build, most of mine were built with salvaged lumber I recut on my table saw. The most expensive part was the fabric, about $40 worth. Typically I only had about $50-60 into them total. You could likely even do it for less there. Canvas also works, I have used it several times. You just expect to reskin it every few years. Now I use 9 oz nylon on all of them, it lasts longer and is plenty strong.

Yes, cheap enough to build one of each. Just get the dimensions of each and built them both. After you have some time in them, you may change your mind about what you like as you get more experience.

Lashing the frame with polyester cord or string is both stronger and faster than using fasteners, and the traditional way the native kayaks were built.

Good luck.

 

Thanks Petros, I will probably try skin-on-frame kayak first since it seems cheap and easy to begin with.

I figure I might try lashing the strringers to the transverse frames / bulkheads with long strands of fiberglass roving, then soak them in epoxy when I'm sure I have the hull straight. This should make them both strong and permanent.

I have some woven polyester / cotton I may try since I already have it. I think there's enough cotton it it to shrink it tight after wetting it and letting it dry. Then I can paint it with 100% acrylic paint since I already have some of that in the shop as well.

Have you ever used styrofoam (or any other kind of foam) for bulkheads in your skin-on-frame kayaks?

 

I'm seriously thinking that I should go with full size plans instead of a kit so that I can spread out the amount of money that goes into the project of building a kayak, but I would like to hear from more people on the techniques used to cut out the hull planks. Specifically on tracing the pattern onto okoume. From what I have read, most people reccomend using a utility knife to trace the cut lines from the patterns onto the ply, then mark the scribe lines, cut leaving about 3/4" so that matching hull planks can be fastened together with hotglue and cut at the same time.
I'm still trying to decide on a design as well, now I'm considering building a double for my first project. Can a double be paddled as a single easily, or do you specifically need two people? Once again, I'd like to utilize a kayak primarily for expeditions and fishing, (fresh water, No-whitewater) and would like for it to have the ability to handle a choppy surf if need be.

 

to Kengrome:

Fiberglass would make a pretty good lashing I suspect, you simply want something that will not work lose. Nylon is not a good lashing material because it relaxes when wet and they get loose, so lashings should be polyester lace or string, not nylon or cotton. I have little experience with fiberglass, I made my first kayak using it, and I never wanted to touch the stuff again, thank you.

The poly-cotton fabric should work well, put it on a tight as possible. If you hand stitch the skin on (a single seam on the center of the deck is usually all it takes) use a "baseball" stitch with two needles and threads. It is like a shoe lace, you can get it real tight as you make each stitch. poly-cotton will likely not shrink very well, so be as neat and tight as you can when installing it. You might try this however, once the skin is on spray it with water to wet it out lightly and evenly and then take a very hot clothing iron and go over it slowly. You want it just below the temp where you will melt the polyester or char the cotton. If the poly will shrink at all, it will be just below where it will melt. You may get as much as 2-3 percent shrinkage, not much but enough to even out any puckers or wrinkles. Good luck.


To Fraggin,

You will save money by scratch building from plans only, but if your time is worth anything the kits are a bargain. They save A LOT of time and well worth it, it is a lot of tedious parts cutting out time. Savings is not only in cutting the material out, but in having to find it all and gather it together. There is not that much profit in the kits, they are not just materials kits, they include everything cut out for you, so they have a lot of labor into the kits. Also they get the materials in bulk prices from overseas, cheaper than you could get it small quantities. You might save as much $200-300, but it will be at the cost of a lot of extra build time. but check it out for yourself. I myself do scratch building, but there is very little I buy since I scrounge all my materials from salvaged lumber and supplies where ever I can.

I would not suggest a double. It is a lot more work, it is much heavier and they are not very pleasant to use either single or with a partner. The advantage to the kayak is to go explore places you can not reach with larger boats, you will not only have another person to consider where you go, but you will get frustrated whacking each other all the time. Even used as a single it will be heavy and clumsy not very maneuverable. It costs the same in time and money to build two singles than a double. IF you have two people to consider on this building project, something much better would be to build a larger cargo hauler single, and a smaller light weight single. Then you have two to choose from depending on the trip; for hauling or day paddling, and two to use when your partner or friend comes along.

I love kayaks, but a regular canoe is much better than a double kayak. It is faster to build than a kayak, carries more, is easier packing and it is better suited to use either as a single or a double. I have owned both, trust me, two single kayaks is way better than one double, and for maximum in flexibility and cargo hauling, a canoe is the way to go. Of course the canoe is not suited for surf or rouge water conditions.

 

In your first post you mentioned using primarily for expeditions, fishing, and in choppy surf condiitons. That's a lot of somewhat conflicting requirements for a boat; you may be better off with several boats. however, if you are looking for an optimum compromise in a single boat you should definitely borrow or rent several and try them out in your intended conditions before you decide on a design.

There are some other issues in selecting a boat; give these some thought. For me, as an example, light weight is as important as anything else as I have to cartop to a lake, and my nearest one has very wide beaches that I have to cross. For me that indicates a small double paddle type canoe. I like the look of wood and I avoid glassing my boats since a really light boat can be handled with as much care as fine furniture; I do add metal stembands however.

An important factor in a boat for sea use is its behaviour in a wind. A boat that strongly insists on going either upwind or downwind can be exhausting or even dangerous when you wish to maintain another course. I prefer almost neutral behaviour with a slight upwind bias since upwind is hardest for paddling and a boat that wants to upwind allows me to concentrate on power not steering. Having said that, a rudder can be a blessing; if that is your choice bear in mind that some stern shapes just do not take to having a rudder attached.

You describe yourself as an avid woodworker not a professional one, so I assume your time is pretty much your own, in which case the plan option is almost certainly better for you that a kit, unless money is no option.

Oh, and good luck and welcome to the fraternity. A good bite from the boat building demon is incurable but a great way to go ...