Pulling Wires

Now after I have spent all of that time putting the wires in and twisting them... It took about two hours to pull them all out. The hull is now ready for sanding and final fairing, with any luck I will be able to put the fiberglass on this weekend... but Easter might get in the way.
I did spend a bit of time yesterday thinking about navigation lights, hard wired vrs small battery operated. I still don't know what way to go, but if I can find something reasonably priced I might lean that way.

time spent thus far... 43 hrs

Filling in

Spent another hour last night filling in the gaps between the panels with epoxy and wood flour. I didn't realize I had so many, in fact it was pretty discouraging. But not to worry, the paint guy will fix it up.
I finally made a decision on the rudder issue. There are a lot of nice commercial kits available but they come with a nice price. I could build the whole thing from scratch but time is becoming an issue. I settled for purchasing rotating foot pegs for the aft seat and a rigging kit from Duckworks Boat Building supply. I plan on building the rudder and mounts, this should save me a few bucks and it should look pretty nice.

Hull glue up

Spent a couple of hours tweaking the hull and trying to get it perfect. I got it flipped over with a little help and squirted epoxy into all of the seams. One of the things i noticed while working on it, is that the  stems really suck. i think once i get the hull fiber glassed and the end pours in place, i will cut off the stems and replace with a single piece of hardwood and carve it to fit. i just don't like the look of the plywood stems. I have also decided that this boat is going to get a paint job. The quality of the plywood is just not good enough to clear coat and  there area a lot of tear-outs from drilling all of the holes.

so here is my idea of a fun paint job. and if anyone has ideas for other graphics like a sea turtle or orka or something that has to do with a "mother-ship" let me know.

 

time spent thus far... 40

We have Hull

About the only nice thing I can say about this weekend’s blizzard is that I got about 4 hours to spend on the kayak. The rest of the time is spent on Etsy projects and shoveling and shoveling and shoveling. As you can see in the pictures I have managed to get the rest of the hull pieces wired together. The hull is starting to look pretty good, and I am surprised at how wide this thing is. I bet you could load a lot of stuff in this thing for an extended trip for two. I still need to tweak the wires and tighten up some areas and trim some pieces to get a tighter fit. Then the final wires on the temporary supports. After that, I will attach a couple of scrap pieces t the supports and flip it over in preparation for epoxy. So the time spent thus far brings us up to....37 hours... just not in a row.

Interruptions

Not all interruptions are bad. Yesterday I had to fill a quick ship order of wooden toys to send to Manhattan Kansas. That's the stuff that funds the kayak project. If the kayaks paid for themselves I would be tempted to turn this into a business and then it wouldn't be fun anymore..

Weekend Progress

I did manage to spend some quality time in the shop this weekend. The stitching has begun. It has taken a little more time than I anticipated to get the hang of the best way to put the wires in and twisted tight. I am using construction wire instead of the recommended copper wire, to save a few bucks, but I'm paying for it in time. The other little glitch I ran into was the temporary frames, they didn't fit. Not only did they not fit, but were so far off I had to start over and plot them out again. Apparently when I put the numbers in the computer to print out the shapes I messed up the scale factor and ended up close but no cigar. Just goes to prove that doing some things by hand pays off.

I added 8 hrs to the project this weekend, which brings us up to 33 hrs so far. The lake still has over two feet of ice on it still, so I have a little more time...

Panels Complete

Deck Panels

 This weekend was pretty productive, I just wish it was a day or two longer. I spent Saturday running around town doing the weekly shopping and errands. Saturday afternoon was dedicated to ice fishing for northern pike, of which I did manage to land 3 beautiful fish.
Sunday I expected the weather to be bad so I planned on spending the entire day in the shop. The major tasks for Sunday was to prep all of the panels for stitching  after hours of sanding edges and beveling the edges on the shear line and drilling holes, I think I am finally ready to stitch the hull panels together.
At this point I am willing to mention that the plans and manual from Pygmy boats does leave a bit to be desired. While the instructions and plans are complete, everything is there, they seem to be lacking in more depth and in-site to the project that would make the process a little easier. After spending the majority of my life as a professional draftsman, whoever drew up the plans could have spent a little more time improving readability. Again, the plans are complete, just lacking a bit of style.
Eight hours spent on Sunday, which brings us up to 25 hours so far.... not bad for a first build.

Hull Panels

Mothership

Had a great four day weekend to work on the kayak. It started on Friday with a terrible cold (cough cough ;) and ended Monday with the presidents day holiday. At this point, all of the major pieces have been cut out with the exception of the coaming pieces. I have to admit that i didn't spend every available hour on it. I did manage to go catch a couple of fish, take care of some book work and various other tasks. Cutting out 12 twenty foot long pieces with a jigsaw has not been the most fun task that i have done on this boat so far. that works out to about 480 feet of cutting, no wonder i went through 3 blades.
As of this weekend I hereby dub this kayak the "Mothership" because it is one mother of a big boat.
I added about 10 hours to the project this weekend which brings the total up to 17 hours thus far.

A little more

Made a little more progress this weekend on the kayak. The lofting is now complete, next step is to cut out the pieces and smooth out the final shapes. Then will trace out the shapes on the other panels for the other side, cut and smooth. I would have spent more time on it but we got hit with a blizzard and the shoveling was a lot of fun.

hours spent so far...  7

First steps

The first challenge on this kayak build is putting together long enough panels for the length of the boat. Butt joint two full sheets plus 53 inches of a third. I used a trim bit in the router to true up the edges and with a 3 1/2" brace, I glued the butt joints with epoxy thickened just a bit with wood flour. You can see the weights used to hold everything down while the epoxy cured. A good use for paint cans full of bent rusty nails! With the average temp in the shop around 65 deg, it took almost all of two days for the epoxy to dry. The next big issue was figuring out how to turn the 20ft piece of 1/4" plywood over by myself...not happening.. With the help of the neighbor we got it flipped.
Now I can draw on the sections to be cut out.

Hours spent thus far.... 3

K3 The next kayak

And so we begin. This kayak is a Pygmy design called the Osprey double/triple. I purchased plans from them but not the entire kit. This build has started pretty slow, I had hoped for more shop time but you know how life gets in the way. I do have most of the materials on hand, and I will gather the rest as we go along. The epoxy and fiberglass I purchased from U.S. Composites. I used their stuff on the first boat and was happy with the result. The plywood is not the fancy okoume marine grade plywood that cost 60 bucks a sheet... I am using luan plywood from Menards at 7 bucks a sheet. I like the grain patterns and once you put fiberglass on it, it doesn't matter what the material is. All I managed to accomplish this weekend was setting up a 20' table to start work on. Hmmm, I think I feel the flu coming on....

Happy New Year

Wow, what happened to December? Its not like I have been slacking or anything, I had 19 orders for things on Etsy, lots of toy fences, gates, paddle boats and cutting boards. Had to take a little time for the holidays and do some ice fishing.

But now I'm back in the shop, I have the wood on hand for the next kayak and I ordered the fiberglass and epoxy. The space is clear for the the 20' tandem, I just need to move the snow blower back to the garage where it belongs.

I have a couple of projects to ship out this weekend; 2 paddle boats, 6 cutting boards and a farm set (fence, gate, water tank and hay bales). After that I should be able to do some fun stuff right?

Cleaning

I didn't realize just how bad it was until I spent the whole weekend cleaning out the shop. There were scraps of junk and old wood that has been lurking under a few benches for at least 9 years now. If I haven't used it by now, it isn't going to happen. Driven by a local newspaper reporter who is coming out today to take some pictures and interview some local people who sell crafts and stuff on Etsy. I figured that I had better clean enough to at least make it safe to walk around. I'll post the article when it comes out. Now I have the floor space to layout the new kayak...

Busy

Been pretty busy in the shop of late, the weather is getting colder and we have finished the firewood for this year. So that translates into more time for fun stuff and less time doing yard work. The Etsy shop is doing pretty good, I suppose the pre-holiday shopping is picking up. It still amazes me that I have been buying tools and supplies from the income generated by these silly little wooden toys and fences. A big thank you to everyone who keeps coming back and buying more stuff. I'm going to pound out some more stuff to send to a craft show in DeSmet on the 17th that the neighbor has a booth at. We will see how all this stuff sells.

Meanwhile I am just about finished with the re-skining project of B-man's kayak. I have been learning interesting things about tent fabric and spar urethane. Just a few bits of trim to put on and one final coat, then its off to storage for the winter cuz I need the space for the next kayak.

Upcoming Projects

I have a few projects coming up that should be pretty exciting. the first one is a tandem kayak built using the stitch and glue method of plywood construction.

I also need to catch up on some etsy projects to build up a little inventory before the gift giving season starts. Yes I know a lot of people have finished their xmas shopping by mid July but I tend to wait until the bitter end, better deals that way, right guys? 

There is a quilting/work table on the list that I need to get finished one of these days to keep peas in the household and various other small projects that have been waiting for awhile... ok for a long time. but I'm getting better! Now to do some fishing!

Bathroom follow up

Yes I promised to follow up on the bathroom overhaul we finished in June. To sum it up we installed a new tile surround, had the tub re-glazed, new shower head, paint, and a bead board ceiling.

New Addition to the Shop

Ok I finally did it. I have been messing with my band saw for a couple of years now. I must say that it is one of the most used tools in the shop. So why have I been fighting with a tiny dysfunctional table and no fence? So thanks to the proceeds from a lamb sale and a few sales at ETSY I have finally ordered a table top, fence combo from Rockler.com. This should make a world of difference in the production of those silly little fence toys.

Here is the link to the product if anyone is interested.. http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?site=ROCKLER&page=10164

soon

sorry, been busy..... be back soon!

Bath renovation

As you may or may not know, high school graduation is nothing more than an excuse to renovate as much of the house as humanly possible just to keep the peace. As the days click by and the big date draws near I have undertaken the task of the bathroom renovation. Originally I figured that if I was busy tearing out drywall and installing tile I would escape from the other social tasks such as writing invitations, deciding on a menu, and other unspecified tasks that as a man I am totally incapable of.

So here is the before pictures of the bathroom.

Back To Work

I finally finished the built-in components for the end wall of my living room. there is still a few little things to do, like some crown molding at the top of the book cases and a cushion for the window seat. Other than that its finished!