First Strip Installed

After all the difficulties with the forms...after the trials and tribulations of getting wood cut...after all the worry about what mistakes are left to make...after making sure I got the book-matched strips in order...

I installed the first strip!!!!

The first strip

I started by doing a bevel that approximately matches 1/2 of what is required where the deck meets the hull. Then, using clamps and plywood holders I positioned the strip, eye-balled it for fairness, then started stapling.

Another view

This was actually much easier than I thought it might be.

I expected bending the strip along the shear line to be more challenging than it was. I hit the strip with a heat gun while pulling/pushing it into the required shape. After a few minutes, it started bending easier. With clamps, plywood holders, and staples it behaved reasonably well. Some of the staples don't want to hold, so I'm hoping to get some additional strips on soon.


Bend at the bow

For those wondering and who have not read my other posts:

• Guillemot - plans purchased from Guillemot Kayaks
  
  
• Book matched western red cedar - I found a great board at a local home improvement store. One of the advantages of living in the Pacific Northwest.
  
  
• Internal strongback - I'll probably use an external strongback on my next boat.
  
  
• Staples - it's my first boat, I didn't want to bite off more than I could chew.
  
  
• Rolling bevel - I've started fitting the second strip on each side and finding this easier than I thought it would be.
  
  
• Internal and external stems.
  
  
• Titebond II.
  

A Practice Project

Pilot the Dog

This 50 pound bundle of mischief joined the clan in November. One of his hobbies is chewing up any telephone, remote control, or game controller left unattended. Since this is my first strip-built anything, I decided I should try a small project first. I settled on a box we can hang on the wall in our TV room that keeps the remotes handy yet still out of Pilot's reach.

Wall box under construction

Building this box gave me some practice stapling strips, beveling the strips to go around the curve, and gluing strips together. The box is now constructed and is awaiting final sanding and a coat of varnish. The most important lesson I learned is that it is easy to get carried away with the plane when beveling the edge of a strip. Something I don't want to do on the boat!.

The Final Cut and Milling Flat Edges

Cutting the double-wide strips lengthwise proved to be an easy task. I used a couple of feather boards to hold the strip down and another to hold it against the saw fence. I probably spent about a minute on each strip.

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Router set-up for milling flat edges

Once the strips were to their final width of 3/4", I needed to get the edges flat and smooth. So I set my router up as a joiner. I made an auxiliary fence from a piece of MDF. I routed a 1/64" groove on the infeed side and set a straight cut bit flush with the outfeed side. Each strip went through one time for each side. As shown in the photo, I used feather boards to hold the strip tight against the fence and tight against the router table. The corners of the edges ended up so sharp that I actually cut my thumb a time or two.

$22 Worth of Cedar

$22 2x12x18 cedar board cut into book-matched strips.

Late last fall, I discovered that Jerry's Home Improvement carried cedar landscape boards. These are basically very, very low grade 2x12 boards suitable for raised beds. I also discovered that in the stack of rotten, loose-knot boards, there were a few that might be considered tight-knot. I bought a 10-footer as a test and put it in my garage. A few weeks ago, I discovered they had lengths up to 20 feet. So I took a gamble and spent $22 on an 18 footer in hopes that I would get something I could at least get a few strips out of for the shear strips.

After an hour or so going through the stack of boards, I was able to extract what appeared to be a hidden gem. I loaded the soaking thing on top of my car and carefully drove home with it.

In trying to cut the 10 footer, I discovered I was a little out of my depth with the table saw and decided I would need someone with more experience and a better saw to do the cutting. Last night one of my neighbors, who just happens to be a woodworker/carpenter, told me to tote the board over to his house. I carried the strips home about an hour and a half later. I don't think I could be happier about how they turned out. There is very little waste and the color is beautiful.

These strips are 1/4 inch thick and just over 1 1/2 inches wide. To use them for the kayak I'll have to cut them into 3/4 inch wide strips and run the edges across my router table set up as a jointer.



Close-up of boards.


Closer close-up of boards.

Aligning the Forms

Assembly for holding alignment string

The plane of each form need to be square to the strongback and aligned with all the other forms. Getting the forms aligned was an extremely interactive process and it took me forever to get a system together that I felt confident in. If I had to do again, it would probably take me only a matter of hours instead of the days it took me.

The first thing I did was to get the strongback level by using shims under the legs of the stands. That way, I could insure that if a form was vertical, it was square to the strongback and aligned vertically with all the other forms.

The next thing I did was to clamp a small frame to the end of the strongback and use a plumb bob to line up a nylon line vertically with the centerline on the strongback, as show in this picture. I used a dab of hot glue to hold the nylon line in place on the frame.

Angle aluminum for adjusting form position

As I mentioned, the holes in the forms were oversized, so I needed a way to position each one so that it lined up vertically and horizontally with the other forms and also to tilt it one way or the other. The method I ended up using involved clamps and a piece of angle aluminum. That way I could raise one or both sides of the form and slide it left or right as I needed. I marked a center on the angle aluminum so that I could line the center of the form up with the center line on the strongback.

Using the string to align one of the forms

I used the nylon line to visually line each form with the others. In this photo, I have a clamp holding the nylon line at the top of the the centerline of the form I'm adjusting. I visually line up the nylon line with the centerlines of all the forms. If it does not align, I move the form I'm working on until it does. Once the form is aligned I secure it to its cleats with hot glue.

Form glued to its cleat

Once I had a form aligned I checked to make sure it was vertical and that it was square with the box beam. If it needed a little adjustment, I used shims of posterboard (i.e. little chunks of cereal boxes) to get the alignment spot on. Once there, I secured it in place with a couple of clamps and hit it with several spots of hot glue.

Once all the forms were secured with hot glue, I checked the alignment with the string and also by visually aligning the the other marks on the forms. Most of them were aligned perfectly, but for a couple, I had to break loose the hot glue and realign them.

Once all forms on the strongback were properly positioned, I secured them in place with drywall screws.

All forms in place

The end forms were much easier than I had expected. I glued the perpendicular forms to the larger form that is parallel to the centerline, using clamps to hold them in place. When they were dry I used small pieces of angle aluminum to secure the larger ones. I then took the whole assembly, lined it up with the rest of the forms using string and eyesight, clamped them in place, secured them with hot glue, then used sheetrock screws to shore them up.

this photo shows the strongback with all forms aligned, secured, and taped on the edges so that when I glue strips into place they won't stck to the kayak.


Getting the forms aligned and secured was a large pain in the butt. Some of the lessons I learned were:

• Be patient. You will get it done even if you have to backtrack and redo and backtrack and redo. There is no point in beating yourself up over your mistakes. Let it be fun.
  
  
• Hot glue is your friend. It holds things in place, but can be undone. You can knock parts loose with a mallet, cut it with a chisel, or cook it with a heat gun until it melts again and softens.
  
  
• Aquarium tubing with water in it does not make a precise enough level. I tried this at first, but the tubing could move up or down by about a quarter of an inch before the water would move. Had I used this to line up the forms, the kayak would be messed up.
  
  
• A nylon line, even stretched tight, will sag. I used a stretched line to draw a horizontal line on the side of the strongback. When I checked this by measuring, I could tell it had sagged in the middle. I rotated the strongback so that the side was on top. When I stretched the line again, it confirmed that the line had sagged.
  
  
• Buying an aluminum box beam saves time. In my case, lots of time.
  
  
• When you get the forms aligned and secured, you realize that you really are going to be able to build your kayak. And that is a good feeling.
  

Kayak Build: Strongback 2.0

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Originally uploaded by TimsPottery

The weather got cooler, and school began, so work on the kayak stopped for the winter. Now the sun is beginning to shine, and I'm ready to get back to the boat. I ended last year's work with the forms on a new strongback. This post will describe what went into that. I urge you to learn from my mistakes...I mean insights.

Before you go any further, you should check out the videos in Nick's blog at http://www.guillemotkayaks.com.

After deciding that the first strongback was not constructed well enough, I decided to go ahead with a single length of 2x4 extruded aluminimum box beam. I bought this at a local metal supply place. I cut it to the length of the untapered part of the strongback as outlined in the kayak plans. For the tapered ends of the strongback, I trimmed 2x4 sections of wood from 2x6's and trimmed them to fit into the ends of the aluminum box beam. I inserted them about 8 inches into the boxy beam. The wooden parts were narrower than the inside dimension of the box beam, so I secured them with wedges on either side.

Once I had the ends in, I used a nylon line to trace a straight line down the strongback. About every foot, I used a dab of hot glue to hold the line in place so that I could more easily draw the line. If you do this, be careful not to nudge the line to the side as you put the glue down.

In his videos, Nick does the cutouts in the center of the form so they just fit over the aluminum strongback. By the time I got the strongback built, I had already cut holes too large for this method. An additional issue (probably not too hard to deal with on future boats) is that my aluminum beam has a slight bit of torsion, so forms would have to be adjusted to line up.

Since the form holes were oversized and the beam had torsion, I decided to use cleats to anchor the forms. For every form, I drilled 2 holes in the side of the beam and in the top of the beam. I then tapped the holes. To anchor the cleats to the beam I used machine screws. Yes, this was a bit of work, but it was not as bad as I thought it would be.

The photo shows one end of the strongback. The tapered portion is wedged is held tight in the box beam by wedges (after the forms were all on, I secured the tapered insert with screws through the box beam and into the wood). At the top of the end of the box beam is a small horizontal cleat. on the side of the box beam are two tapped holes waiting for the vertical cleat. I predrilled holes into the cleats and made sure they were square with the beam so that the forms could go on them. Each cleat was attached after the previous form was slipped onto the strongback.