Bulkheads - 1 out of 2 aint bad

Ok, so having wired the boat together, the manual casually mentions to flip the boat over and support it in mid-air on poles attached to the gunwhale (the top edge of the hull).  This is a faff, especially if you want the boat to be vaguely level.  The important thing is you don't want the bottom of the boat touching anything otherwise it won't assume the right shape.  The hull stays in this state, hung in mid-air until its been epoxied permanently in shape, so spend some time on this.

Looks like a boat to me!

I thought the next bit was to get the fibreglass out, so I was all prepped and ready for that until I realised I needed to make the bulkheads.  For the landlubber: bulkheads are the cross-section shapes that you'll see in a boat - internal walls if you will.  In bigger boats, these might be watertight, they might have doors in them, etc.  In the Chesapeake 16, there are 2 bulkheads, and these are drawn full-size in the plans.

First you make the bulkheads in cardboard - the reason will become sadly clear shortly.  Take the plans, lay them over some cardboard.   Use a bradawl or pin to transfer the lines from the plans to the cardboard.  Finally have some dot-to-dot childhood throwback time to join them up.  Simples!

So this all works great if they fit.  I was lucky - one of mine did!  The other, not so good.  Bulkheads for the kayak should not distort the shape of the hull - they should just fit to it, possibly drawing the sides in a little if they're loosely wired.


Well, I quickly cut the bulkhead out that fits from the wood.  Be warned - they don't make this clear in the manual, but follow the wood layout guide.  The bulkhead is cut from the 6mm ply (all else thus far being 4mm).  The 6mm piece is 4ft x 4ft and is mainly used for the bits that make up the coaming.  One of the bulkheads comes out of the middle bit of the coaming, so bear that in mind or you'll not have enough space on the board to draw out the other bits.  Fortunately, I had spotted this one!

It doesn't look too bad here, but trust me - its not right

So why didn't the other one fit, you ask?  Hmm - well I'm pretty confident of my measuring (I checked, ohhh I checked!), but I think this is one of those flexible things about boat building - by the time you've wired your panels together, they can assume a number of shapes, esp if you, like me, bought your own wood with its own bending abilities.  Its not that anything is wrong - tho always check, just in case!  Its just that every boat assembles differently.

If you look here, you'll see how far out this is

My next job therefore is to work out the shape from scratch.  If yours is a close, but inaccurate fit, you can adjust it, but mine wasn't wide enough, deep enough, etc and its easier I think to start again.  I've taken a while thinking this one out, and I'll certainly take any suggestions as its an awkward shape!  My current approach is drawing a line around the shape (you can see it faintly in the photo above) and then marking lengths, etc.  I layed a bar across the top and measured the drops to different points.  However, this isn't quite working, so I'm going to have to revisit this.

Thats about where I'm up to, tho we're approaching Christmas now and so I don't think I'm going to have much more time until we're the other side of it.  Its cold in the garage at the moment, so thats not helping.  You know what they say, you can't have your kayak and heat it!  (Sorry, its the only kayak joke I know - you were going to get it at some point!)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New year to one and all!  Pete

Slow but steady progress

So I have been somewhat remiss in keeping this blog up to date!  I can only apologise, although I have made some progress.  Not lots mind you - but it now looks like a boat!

I should probably explain my progress here, as it was always my intention to take my time here.  I'm not a boatbuilder, I'm a software engineer, I'm married and I have 2 young girls.  All of this keeps me quite busy, and the intention of the kayak project was that it was fun.  I'm lucky enough that we have a single garage that we don't keep the car in, and nobody really needs it for anything, so I can leave the kayak untouched without getting told off for weeks, even a month or 2 without being told off that its in the way!   This was quite important to me, because I'm building this for fun, and I don't have a lot of time always, so I really wanted to build something I'm proud of, but in a timeframe that suits me.  I get a lot of people asking me how its getting on, and whilst I'd always love to tell them of the vast changes I'd imagine myself making, I'm quite happy.

Having said that, I've probably failed to blog just as much as build, and have managed not to cover the most fun part of the project - putting the hull together and getting a boat shape!  To recap - I cut some 8 ft x 4ft boards into 11inch wide strips, then from those created (using scarf joints) 16ft long blanks.  I then plotted out the hull sections on them and cut them out.

The next step is to create the kayak shape - this is the "stitch" of "stitch and glue" construction.  Its quite simple to do, and allows you to take flat panels and create a kayak in under an hour!  This is magic - the hull is more or less monocoque (no internal framing) so the shape forms itself.

As it was a nice summer day (then, not now!) I did this outside on our grass, and my 5 yr old daughter (and the 3 yr old for a bit!) helped me do it.  This is highly recommended actually - its not too technical, and kids love the immediacy of this bit.  They also can't break anything provided they are told not to stand on the wood in no uncertain terms!  First, I cut up a load of copper wire into 4-5 inch lengths and put them into a tub.  4 inches is quite wasteful once these are in place, and it uses up a lot of wire to do that (I ordered a 2nd bundle of wire from Fyne boat kits in the end) but it makes it easy to work with whilst you are doing it.

Drill holes at equal lengths down the edges to join together (about every 6 inches, but more near detailed curves, etc) - the smallest drill bit you've got, just enough for the wire to poke through. 

Its an awesome hat - don't argue :)

The order of assembly is this - start with the bottom panels, and drill the bottom edge of them, and wire the whole length of the bottom.  Do not wind the wires tight - you want plenty of movement (think keyring sized loops).  This should effectively make you a panel that opens like a book.

Next drill the ends of the top panels (the very front edge of the boat, and the very back).  Wire these up.  This should get you 2 long panels with the ends wired, which you can open up in the middle.  Find your plans and find the distance from the bow (make sure you measure from the right end!) that the spreader stick needs to be placed.  This is just a scrap piece of wood, cut to a size to open the boat out.  This is exciting because you see the size and shape of the boat already.

At this stage, the upper panels are resting on the lower panels - they would fall through without the scrap wood separating them.

Next, lay some spare bits of wood on the upside down top-panels, and lay the open-book bottom panels on top.  You will want to do this on some trestles, because the panels won't marry up flat, you'll want to bend them (they're upside down, so this is effectively making them droop off the trestles) until they line up.  Next, you guessed it - wire them all together.  Voila! One kayak!

Stitching the upper and lower panels together