The last of the one sheeters.

Nice work!

 

Primed

Thanks, Hoyt.

1st primer coat. I'll hit it again in the morning and maybe to will be time for paint in the evening. The top will be bright with some accents to cover the constuction flaws.

I'm always struck by how many surface flaws I find when I slap on the primer. I'm tempted to pull out the bondo!

 

A couple of pics.

Three coats of int/ext latex enamel later. Took three to get full coverage. One more for good measure. Even the cheap marine paint was going to cost $25 a quart to get it to my doorstep. Considering the nature of the project, this will be fine. I tried tipping it to no avail. The rolled finish is really not that bad. Just as fine as in injected molded yak. Used a fine foam roller.

Edit:

And a whale's eye view.

 

Looking really nice, LP. Love the gloss on that. How abrasion resistant do you think it will be though?

 

I don't really expect any abrasion resistance. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that she'll look the best the day that I dunk her. The best I can do is try to keep the scratches below the waterline.

 

There are no scratches on the outside of my 3-year-old latex-painted plywood canoe, although there are plenty on my roto-molded plastic kayak. The wood canoe is less than 1/2 the weight of the plastic kayak and is used more.

In my experience most of the scratches come from carrying between the parking lot and the water, and hustling the boat on and off the car roof - that doesn't happen with a really lightweight boat which is so much easier to handle than a heavy clunker. The same thing applies, for that matter, on scratches to the cars finish. Unless you are eyeing a stretch of whitewater, don't worry.

The wood boat is a bit roughed up on the inside, due to honest use, but not bad, probably because I used porch paint for the inside. Give the latex plenty of time for the resins to set; dry doesn't mean hardened off.

Latex is great stuff. My sailboat was finished with it and is stored outside Summer and Winter.

 

Jim Michalak designed a tiny little deep vee rowboat called WeeVee. The bottom of your kayak reminds me of WeeVee's bottom -- they both have very deep vee hulls on very short waterlines:

http://www.duckworksbbs.com/plans/jim/weevee/index.htm

It's going to be interesting to hear how you describe the stability of this boat. I hope it's stable enough that you'll enjoy it. The boat looks great!

 

I love this part.

 

God, that's gorgeous, LP.

You're giving me an inferiority complex with how fast this has come together.

 

Here you go CT. The only early photos of the boat. The little yak has really been in process for almost a year now. It's had some dry spells where nothing was done to it for lengthy periods. I'm getting into more of a regular cycle where I can spend time on it. The paint and varnish though don't take a lot of time. On something this size, it only allows 30 min to an hour a day. I did spend a fair turn sanding though and I could have spent more. I'm working in the basement right now and I'm only hand sanding because I don't want to throw a ton of dust into to the air with an electric.

 

OK, now I feel a little better. My 16 footer has been in process for about a year and 2 months now and right now the biggest thing between me and finishing it is funds. Would have gone a lot faster if I could have worked indoors, but just don't have the space and there aren't that many days in Washington where the temperature is above freezing AND it's not raining.

 

LP, I'm curious how you went about doing this. I've read that Sea Kayaker magazine assumes a CG 10" forward and 10" above the back edge of the seat for their performance predictions. But I'd like to get some other numbers, and have been trying to hunt down paddler CG data to no avail. Also been thinking how I could measure myself on teeter-totter type setup, but can't come up with a procedure for VCG in particular. LCG I'm not too concerned about.

BTW, I have seen some diagrams of seated figures with centroid marks (without dimensions) that seem to indicate one can make a safe assumption the LCG will align more or less with the pubic bone.

 

Here is a down and dirty late night post.

It takes a bathroom scale and a couple of phone books and an assistant.

Your going to lay on your side bent at the waist like you were sitting in your kayak and you fell over. Place a phonebook under your shoulder and hip and place the scale under your ankles. Record the weight on the scale and record it's location. Now trade the scale with the hip phonebook. record the weight and location. Finally, trade the scale with the shoulder phonebook and record again.

I chose some abitrary numbers to use tonight.

Shoulder = 55 lbs.
Hips = 90 lbs.
Ankles = 40 lbs.

Distance Hip-Shoulder = 24"
Distance Hip-Ankles = 36"

It's a moment arm calculation.

VCG = [(Hip-Shoulder Distance X Shoulder Weight)/Total Weight]+Baseline to Scale Centerline
VCG = [(24x55)/185)+ 4 = 11.14

LCG = [(Hip-Ankle distance X Ankle Weight)/Total weight]+Baseline to Scale Centerline
LCG = [(36X40)/185)+4 = 11.78

This model assumes the the scale positions form a right angle. The baseline shift will move the baseline from the scale center to the seat bottom or seat back depending on the VCG or the LCG calculation. You will need to determine your personal base line shift based on scale center from your backsides.

In this specific model VCG is 11.14 above the seat and LCG is 11.78 forward of the seatback. I have been using an LCG of 12", but don't recall my actual VCG.

 

Hmm...ok got it. I was trying to picture how you got the vectors with just a bathroom scale, but now I get it. I wonder how accurate the forces work out since your body isn't a rigid object and will shift mass.

Actually I can now picture a way to get my VCG with the technique I was going to use for LCG. I planned to take a sheet of plywood, lay it on top of a large dowel at the balance point...then sit on it and move back and forth until equilibrium (or as close as possible).

Hadn't occurred to me I could simply lie down sideways in a chair position to get the vertical location (duh.) Thanks.

 

There is a certain amount of error in the method. Ideally. you would be completely relaxed so you're not inadvertently shifting your weight from one location to another. You can cross check your accuracy by tallying the three weights to see how close they come to your actual weight. I think I was within five pounds, so I went with it.