Overhand plunge router practice

So satisfying to see people go from shaking their heads to “this is great fun” with a bare minimum of instructions and having to figure out how stuff works for themselves. Julijana took a few pictures of Niall’s practice run…

Personalised cockpit coaming

Clara decided to do another coaming. This time after she measured one she likes. It’s tiny! The cool thing is she did the form (mostly) herself, calculated the length of all parts, worked them into shape and glued the whole…

Planing away

For a city slicker who understands trees can be bought as planks and not much more, it’s a miracle to plane wood down into the thickness you need for a specific project. Strength to weight ratio is slowly sinking in…

Scarfing wood

Science has it that a wood joint bigger than 1:12 slowly starts being stronger than wood without a joint. At 1:15 it is clearly stronger but stiffer. So, how do you want your joint? Scarfing is not just about tall…

Mortising gunwhales

When your Gunwhales are sawn and you start measuring for ribs and deckbeams, that’s when it feels like the kayak build is starting. Today, the old plunge router gave up and before that, the camera “stand” I used for recording…

Our Paulownia has arrived

Today at 7.05 a trucker walked in to the boatyard and said: -“I can’t deliver down here. The tree canopies scrape my brand new 4,5m high truck. You have to get your goods at the bridge“. -“With what?” I said.…

Laminating Greenland paddles

We be laminatin’. Some paddles already tested. None broken so far. A new technique emerged after a tip from one of the gnarly sea cat boat builders at the club, namely the use of an angle grinder for compound curves.…

Cockpit coaming template

I was thinking about how to easily draw and make a jig for a good looking and functioning cockpit coaming and came up with this idea that lends itself to easy drawing with a pencil and a piece of string.…

Brittle Cedar

If it breaks it breaks. Today we bent the wood on the deck beam lamination jig but one inner lamination broke right at the spot of the middle dowel. Clara made a new one in what seemed like under a…

Steaming hot ribs

To steam bend kayak ribs is always interesting. Camera Guy uses the “standing video syndrome” to it’s fullest 😉 And here is a time lapse of Speedy Greg’s kayak. There was never any real need for a rib jig before…

Sign of the times

Always a nice feeling when you spot the first signs of the Spring. Just putting this image here for future reference. It was taken March 28 or 2022-03-28.

Qajaq table saw

It finally arrived. The long longed for table saw arrived and should be easy to set up, was it not for the lack of bushings in the package and the electric switch fastener mounted on backwards from the factory. Ehmmm,…