So there I was, minding my own business, strolling across the grocery store parking lot when I saw it. Perched on top of a funky old car was a wooden kayak. It was love at first sight.
Clever guy that I am, I decided to see if I could actually do the kayak thing. I had been in a canoe (well, actually in and out and back in a canoe in Oregon’s McKenzie River, in a different canoe in upstate New York, etc.). I love being on the water, though I’m not so crazy about being in the water. But one seems to go with the other.
I am fortunate to live on the Washington side of the Columbia River across from Portland, Oregon.; Alder Creek Kayak and Canoe is located on Tomahawk Island in the Columbia, and has a friendly and talented crew that will show you anything you need to know about paddling of any sort. These nice people were kind enough to sign me up for a half-day class.
“Has anyone here paddled before,” asked Jennifer? Smugness surged as mine was the only hand in the air. I allowed as how I had indeed sat in both ends of a canoe, and, in fact, had even taken actual lessons. The other six class members were obviously neophytes – mere amateurs to be looked down upon with scorn and derision. Clearly not water people.
We donned our wet suits, PFDs (stands for Prevents Frigging Drowning according to the Kokatat salesman), and made our way to the dock where our stable of kayaks was waiting. Jennifer did a quick assessment of our sizes and previous experience, assigned boats, and began her on-the-water instruction.
As I crawled into my boat, it became clear that not only was this a pretty tight fit, but it was a tippy ride as well (not that canoes aren’t tippy but that broad expanse of floor in a canoe gives one a false sense of security). While fastening the spray skirt, I realized that I was drifting away from the dock, and that lying there, on the dock itself, was my paddle. I reached out, the boat tipped, and my finger tips just caught the edge of the dock. Paddle retrieved, I settled into the cockpit, gave a wiggle or two, and started out to join the rest of my class who were well away from the dock and circling around Jennifer. A mere stroke or two and I was on my way to join them. But the boat felt even more tippy than it did dockside. It was sort of like perching on the top of a fence trying not to fall one way or the other. I was pondering the feeling, dipped the paddle down into the water and lifted.
Motivation is a curious thing. Properly motivated, your average person can do some pretty amazing stuff. And if nothing else, I am an average person. Motivation came in the form of hanging upside down in a kayak in the 55-degree water of the Columbia River. Now, prior to this particular experience, I was frankly worried about getting out of a kayak if it tipped over. It seemed to me that all the elements were there to keep you fastened to the boat. That tiny little hole that you had to squirm to get into, the tightly fitting spray skirt; these things were there to hinder an escape. I can now say with tremendous confidence, I had nothing to worry about. I had that spray skirt unhooked and was out of that boat in well under a second. Maybe even a microsecond. See what I mean about motivation?
My head cleared the surface, and I opened my mouth to grab air. Nothing came in, and nothing came out. Cold shock. Jennifer paddled up and asked if I was OK. I could only nod. Breathing resumed shortly, and there I was, the “experienced” student in the water, kayak floating nearby downside up, no paddle in sight. Jennifer pointed out to the rest of the class that if anybody else went in they would get extra points for hanging onto their paddle. Thanks Jennifer.
So, my first lesson covered all the bases, including a rescue. The victim (me) bobbed in the gentle current, watched as my boat was drained, my paddle retrieved, and my rescuers (Jennifer
| Click on the thumbnails to see larger pictures |
Not discouraged by my first venture, I kayaked again. Down
Washington’s Humptulips River into Grey’s Harbor for
lunch, in Idaho paddling from lower Priest Lake to 
upper Priest
Lake via the Thoroughfare, dodging power boats who were, in turn,
dodging stumps and logs in the very shallow waters. Discovering
that a wind storm comes up every summer afternoon in the lower
lake, just about the time you’re trying to get back to the
parking lot. Conclusion? I like it! Got to have my own boat.
That wooden kayak in the parking lot at Safeway convinced me that I wanted to build my own. A little research turned up two options: wood strip or plywood. Plywood won out because there was some small chance I’d finish it before going on Social Security (only 10 short years away for me). There are a number of purveyors of plywood kayak plans and kits, including the Northwest’s very own Pygmy Boats in Port Townsend, Washington.
But I liked the lines of Chesapeake Light Craft’s Chesapeake 17 just enough better to decide on the CH17. Although I try (sort of), my weight seems stuck at 215 pounds, so a 17 footer was appropriate for my weight and height. The 17LT was certainly an option, and I had the opportunity to paddle one of these beauties when the CLC crew came through my neck of the woods pulling a trailer full of demo boats and let me try one. But being a big-footed traditionalist I decided to build the CH17.
Actually, I decided to build a paddle; then I would build a boat.
My reasoning was that making a paddle would give me a little bit of experience with epoxy, fiberglass, and a spokeshave. And if I screwed up a paddle, at least I wouldn’t sink. Well, I wouldn’t be able to go, either, but that’s another matter. All I needed were plans.
I chose to build a Greenland-style paddle. The reasons? I'm not really sure, except that I liked the way they looked. And, I ran into a guy about my age that said the Greenland was easier on his aging shoulders than one of the broad-faced power paddles. That plus the fact that he said rolls were easier with a long Greenland blade convinced me. The truth probably is that it looked like something I could build fairly quickly.
The internet provides all. Instructions are available from Chuck Holst at http://www.qajaqusa.org/QK/makegreen2.pdf and quite good ones they are. The basic idea is, you buy a board and take away wood until a paddle emerges. Then you optionally coat it in epoxy, protect and strengthen the blades with fiberglass, varnish the whole thing, and hope in comes in at under 10 pounds.
I started by seeing what was already in my garage/shop. A 1x6x8 piece of hemlock left over from a previous woodworking project came up right away. I would need to build up the middle to make the loom (the part you hold) thick enough. Further exploration uncovered a scrap of mahogany about half an inch thick, left over from a different project. Hemlock is a blondish wood, and the dark mahogany would offset it nicely, I thought. I was ready.
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I marked the center of the hemlock board using a chalk line. Waterproof glue was used to glue the mahogany scraps to the hemlock at roughly the middle of the board. (Why didn't I use epoxy? Didn't have any.) Roughly was good enough because I knew I was going to trim away significant portions of the middle for the loom; |
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After the glue dried, I had a mahogany/hemlock/mahogany sandwich which, unfortunately, bowed a little in one direction. The bowing was probably the result of resting the sandwich between two saw horses while waiting for the glue to cure. The bow was barely visible, but showed itself later in the process. |
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Next, I scribed the shape of the paddle, starting with the ends, which are simple arcs. The width of the finished paddle blade should be about the distance between the center of your thumb and the center of your index finger when you make a 'c' shape. The overall shape of the paddle was not difficult to lay out on the blank. Once scribed, my all-purpose jigsaw was put to work, resulting in something that looked something like a paddle. |
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A Record round-faced spokeshave from my local Home Depot was put to use in shaping the paddle. Since this paddle is not feathered, and the profile of each blade is simple, shaping the paddle went rather quickly. The thicker mahogany middle merged nicely into the hemlock ends, giving a nice texture/color contrast. |
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After a couple of hours of shaping and sanding (and a lot of wood shavings), a paddleemerged. |
There it was! A Greenland-style paddle. Without, of course, whale bone edges, and I'm not sure at all how much mahogany washes up on the shores of Greenland, but overall I was pretty pleased.
I wrapped each end of the paddle in 6oz fiberglass, then applied a nice layer of epoxy (I had some, now) over the whole thing, followed by a single layer of varnish. The final weight turned out to be 1lb 15oz, which was about 8 pounds less than I expected. It was still slightly bowed, even though I tried to shave the bow out while forming the blades. I decided, though, that the bow somewhat resembled the power face on a fancy carbon fiber paddle, and therefore the flaw became a feature.
The paddle was pretty darned easy to build. And it looks good, too! So if
you're in the market for a cheap paddle, and have some lumber
sitting around gathering termites, my suggestion is to give it a
shot.
Now all I needed was a boat to paddle.
Which puzzled me a bit. Here in the greater Portland metro area, we are surrounded by water, and more than a few boat builders, but it must be that people have it shipped to them or they get by with BS6465.
No problem. This was a great excuse to go to Port Townsend, Washington, home of a wooden boat festival without peer (at least on the west coast). And, Port Townsend is also the home of Edensaw Wood Products, Inc. where you can get all the BS1088 plywood you could ever want. One hundred bucks bought me three sheets of 4mm and one sheet of 6mm Okoume, and I got to pick each sheet out of the warehouse. Great guys.
West Systems epoxy came from our local West Marine store at market rates. Fiberglass came from Tap Plastics in Portland. I had a small block plane, but this seemed a good excuse to add a low-angle plane to my small collection. Rocklers had one in stock for the going rate. Disposable brushes, etc. were gathered from Home Depot, as was the 50-pack of 80 grit sandpaper for my random orbital sander. Small yogurt cups from our kitchen. And the bronze ring nails, seat, and backrest from CLC.
Why not order it all from CLC? Mostly because I couldn't pick out the plywood I wanted, and because it was cheaper at Edensaw than from CLC. Most of the rest I could pick up locally - no need to have things shipped across the country
After you have a work space - about 20 feet for a 17' single - think about light. My old house was built in 1919, and the garage in 1938, so work light was not a high priority. After starting, I found that the bow end of the project was sufficiently lit, but that the stern end was dark, very dark. Then, as you begin applying noxious chemicals, and even more importantly, removing them with sanders, etc., you have to worry about ventilation and filtration.
Regarding work surfaces, I thought about building a 20' table out of door blanks, but in fact ended up building the whole think on a row of four sawhorses, bridged when necessary with some 1x12x8 fir boards salvaged from a house project. I found a Workmate bench to be pretty handy, and of course my fixed workbench held plans, epoxy, and coffee.
My son Adam came over to
help me feed the new plywood blade on the table saw, with my wife
Carol in attendance. The
funny thing is, when you're cutting those 4 foot wide sheets
into 11 inch blanks, you wonder at first if you have read the
instructions correctly. That's a very narrow strip of
plywood, and you are going to cut it down even more to shape the
panels. I highly recommend a good quality plywood blade;
you'll get almost no tear-out, and the blade will cut
straight. I decided to practice my scarfing skills with some scrap
1/4" oak paneling left over from yet another project.
According to the CLC book, the ideal scarf angle is derived from
a 6:1 ratio of scarf length to board thickness. In other words,
the scarf in a 1/4" panel will be 1.5" long. So, I 
marked 1.5" lines
across the ends of four panel scraps, and stacked them on top of
one another.
The CLC book suggests using a block plane to shave the scarf
into the panels. When I tried that, however, it seemed tedious
and a bit slow. So, I decided to try my belt sander as CLC
suggests as an alternative.
The belt sander worked pretty well. The sanded edges were
smooth (I used 120 grit paper) and I seemed to have 
sufficient control to make
the cuts mostly even, though as you can see, if you linger too
long, you'll get an interesting waggle, which will result in
a thin spot when the panels are glued-up.
I was pretty pleased with the results of my practice. Enough
pleased, at least, to no longer be terrified of totally screwing
up the scarf joints. One thing that I spent some time on was
picking the sides of the panels that would be on the outside,
trying to get a good color match.
Now all I had to do was be able to glue them up without
screwing up too badly. My first priority was getting a straight
line along one edge (the baseline edge, I guess) of both panels.
A string was tightened between the sawhorses on each end, and the
panels aligned with the string. My second first priority was
trying to get the scarf joints glued properly with thickened
epoxy. 
The
joints are, to be frank, a little squirmy. The panels tend to
slide out from under each other. What I ended up doing was a dry
fit on the stacked panels, then clamping the panels to the
support board so that they wouldn't slide apart. Then I
spread the panels and applied epoxy. A clamped board across the
joint (wrapped in plastic, of course) with a little additional
support from a mineral spirits can, and wait until tomorrow to
see how it all turns out. By the way, if you examine the photo
closely, you will notice that one panel is wider than the others.
That's because it was unclear to me from the plans whether
one panel needed to be wider. I don't think it did, as I
recall, but that's the reason.
One other thing about these scarfed panels. As you are gluing
up the joint, it will come to you like a nightmare out of the
gloom that gluing two eight foot lengths together with a scarf
joint will not result in a 16 foot panel. Rather, it will be
something like 16 feet minus the width of a scarf, which in this
case is 1.25 inches for the CH17. I got a little nervous because,
unlike the hull panels, the bottom panels do not have an
additional scarf joint to bring the total length to 17 feet. What
if they were too short? Well, they're not. And you're
provided a little buffer because most Okoume panels are
dimensionally fudged on the plus side. That is to say, the 4x8
panels are actually a little wider and longer than that. As they
say in Australia, "No worries, Mate!"
The final thing with scarfed joints is this: although the two surfaces
needn't be exactly matched, they have to be 
pretty darned close.
If the two surfaces of the plywood are in good alignment, and the angle of the
scarf itself matches, then you'll have a good joint so long as you don't squeeze
all the epoxy out. If, on the other hand, one piece of plywood rides up over the
other, then you have a couple of problems. The first is that the surface area
joining the two pieces is less, resulting in a weaker joint. The second is, you
now have an unsightly bump. Regarding the bump, you can either live with it, or
sand it down. If you sand it down, then you have further decreased the structural
strength of the joint because plywood gets its strength from that sandwich of
veneers (three in this case); the thinner you make the top veneer, the weaker the
plywood. The final case is in having the two sheets even with one another, but
with a significant gap between the two. In this case, there is some chance that
epoxy will not completely fill the void, resulting again in a weak joint. The second
is that a large amount of epoxy filler changes the bending characteristics of
the plywood, causing stresses in strange places.
The bottom line is, you have a little wiggle room when it comes to the scarf joint, but not very much. If one sheet has climbed up another, you can sand a little, but just a little, not a lot. If you have a gap, you can fill it with epoxy, but not much. The good news is, if you screw it up, you can make a new one if you have to. You will probably have to add yet another scarf joint if have to cut out a bad joint. But it can be done. Onward!
Anyway, this is the part of the project where you hope that you have cut straight panels, and that you have glued the scarfed panels together along a straight edge.
When you look at the plans, the drawings for each panel at first seem to suggest that the point at which the two bottom panels come together at the keel is a straight line for most of its length. But the lofting tables tell a slightly different story. There is a mild curve to the keel line on each bottom panel. And that's the point of having a straight edge from which to work.
If you were not so lucky and had a bit of problem in gluing up the scarf joints, all is not lost. You can simply (don't you hate that word?) use a chalk line to strike a new baseline, then measure from the chalk line rather than the edge of the plywood panel.
I followed the instructions in the manual very closely. I
measured from one end of the long panel, 
scribing a line every 12 inches. Then I measured the
offsets, drew a little mark, and drove in a brad. To fair the
line, I found what I think is the perfect fairing stick. In the
trim area of your favorite home building supply store is
something called screen trim 
and it comes in 12 foot
lengths. Screen trim is about an inch wide and less than a
quarter inch thick. The piece I found was knot-free and nicely
flexible. I laid the screen trim on edge and clamped it to the
brads about every other brad. This gave me a beautifully fair
line which I followed along with a pencil.
This was the point at which I realized that I needed to pay
attention to which side was going to be out and which was going
to be in. The bottom panels are, to an extent, 
reversable in
that they must be joined at a common seam, but they can be folded
in either direction, if that makes any sense. Since each bottom
and hull panel are symmetrical in outline, they can be fitted to
either side of the boat. (This is why you only need to loft and
scribe one panel.) So you get a choice of panel surface when you
scarf the panels together, and then again before you stitch them.
Speaking of which, we'd better get on with it.
The first thing I did was clamp a scribed blank panel to its non-scribed mate. By clamping two blanks together before cutting and shaping them, you guarantee side-to-side symmetry.
To cut the panels, I 
used a
high-quality jig saw blade specifically designed for plywood. The
saw blade has a higher tooth count and "set" to cut
cleanly and without tearout. I cut just outside the line I had
scribed, going slowly and carefully, and trying very hard to keep
the saw line a fixed distance from the drawn line - about a
1/16th inch or so - so that fairing the panel with a plane would
be easier. Even being cautious, cutting the panels went very
quickly and without problems.
At this point, the panels were
roughed into shape. While they were still clamped
together, I began the final fairing, using the Record low-angle
block plane. The plane comes from the factory pretty sharp
(though real woodworkers will tell you it needs to be sharpened
and it probably really does). The reason the plane needs to be
sharp is two-fold: a sharp plane is easier to use, for one. You
don't have to drive it through the wood. The second is that a
sharp plane won't splinter the delicate edges of the plywood
because you're not driving it through the wood. Ah, a
recurring theme. Driving through the wood is bad, and gently
slicing through the wood is good.
A sharp plane, in fact, makes it very easy to trim the panels
down to the 
scribed line. The only trouble I had was on the
inside curves, where there is very nearly enough curve to prevent
the plane steel from touching the wood.
Trim the bottom panels and cut and trim the hull panels, sand
the inside corners a bit, and you're ready to move on to the
stitch part of stitch n' glue construction.
Back to the lumber store.
What I ended up buying was a nice clean 10-foot piece of knot-free kiln-dried pine. A quick pass through the table saw, and I had shear clamps ready to be scarfed together.
I started by scribing a line 1/4" in from where the panels join, the length of each panel. Then I added tick marks for each drill hole. When you drill, use a sharp new bit and drill slowly. If you get in a hurry, you may tear out the far side of the panel. At some point in the process you should use your sanding block to round off the corners of each panel where they will join.
Once the holes were drilled, I began wiring the thing together. It's kind of an odd process. You start by wiring the bow and stern of the side panels together, then spreading them with a spreader stick, turning the side panels upside down, then stitching the hull panels together.
But it works!
The spreader stick holds the side panels out to the correct beam width at the correct
point. As the book said, I loosely tied the wires giving me some wiggle room later
on when the hull panels got stitched to the side panels.
Stitching is easy - just remember to not tighten all the wires until you have
the boat into the configuration you want.
When the hull and side panels were stitched together, the classic kayak shape appeared.
With one little problem as you can see in 
this photo.
In laying out the panels, I obviously didn't do the lofting exactly right. The
hull panels were a touch longer than the side panels, assuming that I had the
spreader in the right place, and it was the right length.
I double-checked the spreader stick to make sure it wasn't stretching the side
panels too far, making them shorter than the hull panels. It wasn't. Either one
set of panels was too long, or the other was too short.
After looking around to make sure no one was looking, I made a few quick swipes with my block plan, and the problem disappeared.
"connect the dots"
to draw the outline of each bulkhead.
Referring to the plan, I measured the approximate distance from the bow to each
bulkhead position. Then I swung the tape measure from the bow to the same distance
on each sheer clamp, and made a pencil mark, ensuring that the marks were
equally distant from the point of the bow, and therefore square on the boat.
It seemed more important to me that
the bulkhead be square within the boat than the exactly-correct distance from the
bow, particularly since you want to fit the bulkheads without altering
the shape achieved with the spreader stick. By marking the sheer clamps as I did,
I created a reference point across the boat, and so long as both sides of
the bulkhead were the same distance from the mark, I knew it would be square.
I only had to trim the bulkheads where they slipped under the sheer clamp,
since my sheer clamp wasn't 
exactly the same shape as the one assumed by the plans.
Otherwise, the bulkheads fit very nicely.
The bulkheads get stitched to the hull in a couple of spots to hold them in
place while you are putting fiberglass and epoxy goop into the joints. But before
you do that, you have to make sure everything is shipshape (don't you love those
nautical terms?). It's time to get the boat elevated and squared away.
not warped or twisted, and that the keel line is fair, without horrid bumps or
flat spots.
The first is a relatively simple thing to do. The book says to lay a couple of sticks (the winding sticks) across the boat, resting on the sheer clamps. Then you stand (or squat, as the case may be) at the end of the boat, and sight down the length of the boat, moving the sides up and down until the winding sticks are level with each other.
Next, you need to make sure that the vertical line made by the bow and stern are
indeed vertical. Whoops! Now, let's see. I made the winding sticks level with
each other. But did I make them level? Because if they aren't level, and I
bend the boat to make the bow and stern vertical, then I have purposefully (by
accident, of course) made the boat twisted. Back to the winding sticks, this time
with a level in hand.
After making sure the winding sticks were level and level with each other, I went back to the bow and stern to see if they were vertical. The bow was in good shape, but the stern warped away to the left at the top. I grabbed the top and bottom of the stern, twisted, and made the stern vertical. Now for the fairing part.
I stepped back as far as I could, and looked at the keel line from the side. The line swept down from the bow, curving nicely toward the stern, right up to the point at which my rear end would be planted on my Happy Bottom cushion. The keel line was flat there, then began its nice curve on toward the stern.
This is tough. It wasn't a dip, and it didn't look terribly flat, but it seemed to me that it shouldn't be as flat as it was. I looked back at the plans, and at the instruction book about how that line should really look. No help. I referred to The New Kayak Shop by Chris Kulczycki. Again, no help. Both books say this curve is important, but they also say you just have to eyeball it, and make it as fair as you can. Sigh.
What might have happened? I might have made a mistake in laying out the lines for the bottom panels, making them narrower than they should have been at that point, which, when stitched together would result in a flat spot. The optimistic view might be that I did the lofting just right, and that's the way the boat is supposed to look. But it didn't feel right. So what to do?
The instruction book talks about forcing wedges down in between the panels
to change the curve of the keel line. So, I loosened the wire in that part of
the hull, and gently jammed 
wedges into the crack.
That seemed to work! By spreading the panels apart, the flat spot was bowed outward
a bit, fairing the keel line. The spread was about 1/8th an inch at the widest.
At this point, I had a fair boat. I went around tightening up the copper wire,
making the hull reasonably rigid.
Once the wires were tight, I placed plastic packing tape across the gap between each wire where my wedges were. Then I thickened a little epoxy and dabbed a bit between the wires and the wedges, being careful to not epoxy the wedges into place (though the instruction book says you can do that, and just cut them off afterward). The next morning, I pulled the wedges and made sure the tape had kept the epoxy tabs from dripping, and that the tabs were holding the panels apart. They were. It was good.
The instructions call for a layer of thickened epoxy down in the joint, followed by a strip of 6 oz fiberglass tape, covered by a layer of clear epoxy. What I had on hand was a roll of 9oz fiberglass. The weight differential wasn't going to be all that great, so I thought I'd use it.
Spreading the thickened epoxy was pretty easy - easier than I thought. A nice
soft squeegee helped force the goop down into the seam and feather the edges out.
What I did find was that the instruction book was correct, you have to hustle to
get the tape down into the joint and cover with a layer of clear epoxy. The book
says to pre-cut the strips. My best advice? Pre-cut the strips.
When the epoxy cured, I discovered that my hand wasn't so steady as I had
thought. Rather than a smooth, even layer of epoxy over the glass tape, I had
created a wave, probably happening each time my squeegee drifted over a wire.
And, the epoxy looked mighty thick to me, thicker than it probably needed to be.
Oh well. It will be strong. And heavy. But strong.
Next came laying a blanket of fiberglass inside the cockpit area, which went pretty well. The problem I discovered when doing this one was that I used scrap fiberglass that I had around, rather than the nice, newly-purchased fiberglass destined for the outside of the boat. The scrap was more than long enough to go from shear clamp to shear clamp, but was a little short in the other dimension, so I had to cut the long ends off and try to overlap and blend the two sheets together to extend the length of the cockpit. That fiberglass is nasty stuff when it starts pulling away from the sheet and sticking to your squeegee, and then your glove-encased fingers. Before long, I looked like I had long silver hairs growing out of every finger. Weird!
The sticky part of that idea worked just right. I was lucky enough to be
able to drape the fiberglass down into the boat and up the sides. Then I proceeded
to lay down a second coat of epoxy, "wet-into-wet" if you 
will.
It all became a bit unwieldy at this point. The original coat of epoxy was
probably thicker than it should have been. The second coat was squeegeed onto
the fiberglass, and so the total epoxy load now pretty much guaranteed that the
epoxy would drip down the sides and pool into the bottom of the boat. So, I spent
the next little while cajoling and talking nice and threatening the epoxy,
coaxing it to stay in place. It worked out OK, except that when I came in the
next morning, I saw a few tiny little air bubbles in the overworked epoxy. I
sighed, popped them, and rolled the last coat of epoxy into the inside of the hull.
I started by clipping of the ends of the copper wires. It was simply impossible
to clip them off absolutely flush with the surface of the plywood, so I hoped that
the sanding disk would grind them down (which it did do).
This whole idea of masking off the area in which you're going to work really pays off. I masked each seam about a quarter inch in with plastic packaging tape, mixed up a batch of thickened epoxy (using wood flour to sort of match the color), and proceeded to fill the seams.
After the seams were filled and the epoxy cured, the tape came of, the
random orbital sander came out, the seams were smoothed and the entire hull
received a light sanding. This boat was starting to look
good!
I draped the fiberglass over the hull. Then I looked down, and took it all
off again. My garage floor needed a little protection. Left over plastic
sheeting from paint jobs came out of storage and under the boat, covering my
sawhorses as well. I ended up lifting the boat up with Styrofoam blocks to elevate
the hull above the sawhorses and plastic sheeting. I had visions of pools of
congealled epoxy gluing the hull to the sawhorses.
The fiberglass was exactly the right width to drape down nicely, and not bunch up too much on the sawhorses. I smoothed it down to the hull by hand, then took my shears to the bow and stern, slitting the fiberglass and folding it under and over itself, giving me two layers of cloth at each end of the boat.
I spent the next few minutes stirring epoxy, looking at the boat, and reviewing
all the techniques I had read about for applying epoxy to fiberglass and having
it turn out wonderfully. I screwed up my courage, and began.
Epoxy is funny stuff. It seems kind of thick, and not terribly runny. But put that stuff on any surface, and away it goes. I poured, then began some serious squeegee action. In truth, it went very well. A four inch flexible squeegee gave me pretty good control of the epoxy. So long as I kept a light hand, the fiberglass stayed in place. And best of all, the Okoume mahogany shined through. But. And there is always a but, right? But the fiberglass didn't disappear as much as I thought it should. I could still see it. When I made the paddle, the fiberglass (purchased from a local auto parts store) disappeared entirely. This glass did not. A little research showed that fiberglass is treated with a binder that keeps the fibers together. Some binders don't completely absorb the epoxy, and and so the glass itself shows slightly. Next time, I'll buy fiberglass directly from CLC.
I put the first coat on at night, got up early the next morning and applied
the second, then did the final fill coat that night. It really was that simple.
Of course, the epoxy ran here and there, but as pointed out by hundreds of other
builders, a really sharp cabinet scraper quickly takes the tops off those drips and
runs. The only problem is one of perception. In some places, I could still see
the weave of the fiberglass. But I couldn't really tell whether it was because
the epoxy was too thin, or because the weave was "telegraphing" up through
the epoxy. All I could do was guess, so in those places that seemed like they
might be a little thin, I added more epoxy. In the others, I left it. At this
point, I won't really know until the hull gets sanded down. But that's a ways off
I elected to use method two, which is build a couple of dams that get wedged down into the boat at the ends of the shear clamps, then pour thickened epoxy into the ends. No rain. I built the dams out of Styrofoam blocks and wedged them into place. Then I mixed up a nice batch of thickened epoxy and poured away.
To be honest, I had worried a bit about the end pours, simply because I had heard and read about epoxy "bolting", which is usually the result of the heat generated by a large volume of epoxy curing in a small space. The heat literally causes the epoxy to boil. But, I thought, this shouldn't be a problem because not many people mention it on the CLC forum, and one guy talked about cramming all kinds of scrap down into the space before pouring the epoxy. So I thought I would be OK. My epoxy was thick, and it shouldn't be an issue.
After pouring the thickened goop, I closed up shop for the night. But I
forgot something on the work bench, and came back about 5 minutes later to
hear this funny "galooping" sound. I turned on the lights, and saw vapor rising
from both ends of the boat. The epoxy was boiling!
My first thought was that I needed to clean up the drips and mess right away before it hardened. When I gloved up and got to the boat, scraper in hand, I could feel the heat coming from the madly curing epoxy. My second thought was, "Oh no! My boat is going to catch on fire!" That stuff gets hot.
The boiling didn't last long, and I was able to clean up the drips fairly
quickly. But a question came to mind - and I still don't have an answer.
Was this a bad thing? The boat didn't catch on fire, but quit a volume of epoxy
boiled out, down the sides, and onto the floor. So my guess was that there were
a lot of air bubbles in the end pours that "normally" wouldn't be there. Let's
see. The end pour is there to strengthen the boat. My boiled epoxy seemed very
solid to me, and well stuck to the sides. OK, the end pour adds weight to the
boat. My end pours were probably full of air bubbles, and air bubbles are
lighter, right? Right. Not a problem. Right?
The manual suggests it's easy to create the constantly varying angle with the hand plane. And, I suppose it is, now that it's done. But I must say that as I was planing away, trying to fit the deck radius, I became concerned about how much wood I was removing, particularly at the point where the deck beam meets the shear clamp. The angle at that point is at it's most severe, and I actually had to cut down into plywood a little to meet the radius.
The good news is that it does indeed work. Achieving a nice variable radius is possible without a great deal of trouble.
As I was standing there admiring my handywork, I happened to stand in just the right place to accidentally take a sight line from the main deck beam to the small forward deck beam and on to the tip of the bow. My mind expected to see a straight line between these three points. Straight it wasn't. I tied a string to the main deck beam and ran it to the point of the bow. The small deck beam near the bow was inches below the string. A quick look through the manual, followed by a close examination of both the manual and The New Kayak Shop didn't say a thing about this line. My old friend paranoia visited me. Had I made a mistake? I didn't remember seeing any mention about this line from anyone else on the CLC web site forum. Sigh.
I decided to stop being a lurker and pose the question on the forum. Almost instantly the good people at CLC alleviated my fears. The forward deck beam was indeed in the right place at the right height. This downward curve, in fact, is one of the causes of the characteristic line of the CH17. Paranoia went back into his hidey-hole under the stairs.
Rather than mount the foot brace rails to the boat by drilling a hole through the side, I decided to follow the lead of others who mount the rails to a board epoxied to the inside of the boat. The idea is to place a tee nut into a wooden strip, bond the strip to the inside of the kayak hull, then screw the rails to the tee nuts. As an alternative, Vaclav Stejskal has a nice web site describing how he mounts the adjustable foot braces using epoxy pads.
Tee nuts
are used in the woodworking business to embed a metal nut into a piece
of wood. They have several sharp fingers that drive into the wood to keep the nut
from turning, and a threaded collar into which a screw will go.
Diving back into my scrap wood pile, I found a length of mahogany about 3/8" thick.
I cut the mahogany into a couple of strips a little longer than the brace rails. On
the back side of the mahogany, I 
drilled and countersunk a hole that would accept
a tee nut. The tee nuts I bought were stainless steel, but a little longer than 3/8".
A little filing took care of the extra length.
Next I drilled out the threaded holes in the rails. The threaded holes were
intended to receive the stainless steel screws coming in from the outside of the
hull. I also had to saw away part of the rail itself to accept the screw, as
you can see in the photo.
The screws were then run in from the other side of the rail, and
test-fit.
The test fit was satisfactory. The next thing to do was to put a piece of
packing tape across the back of each tee nut so that the nut wouldn't get filled
with epoxy when the mahogany strip was mounted to the boat.
It was time to glue the mahogany to the inside of the hull. A little thickened
epoxy, a couple of padded clamps, and let it cure. The 
next day
day the mahogany strips were painted with unthickened epoxy, making sure not
to fill the tee nuts. After the epoxy cured, the rails were screwed into place.
This seems to me a sturdy way to mount the foot brace rails, with the added benefit
of no holes through the hull, and some added strength. It's a very workable
approach.
Making the deck from the plans is the least obvious part of building the boat. The reason is that the plans give a lot of detailed information about how to measure and cut every element of the boat, except the deck itself. When it comes to the deck, the plans show a single sheet of plywood with the two main pieces of the deck nicely drawn, including the cutout for the cockpit. But there are no measurements, no lofting tables, no hint of how long the extension that must be scarfed onto the end of the bow piece must be. It seems, on the face of it, rather haphazard.
And in fact, it is. All the instructions for making the deck boil down to one picture of a guy holding a sheet of plywood over the bow of a boat. In summary, the instructions suggest that you get a helper to hold the plywood in place, draped over the boat, while you duck underneath and draw the outline of the boat on the underside of the plywood.
Since I was working alone I ended up using strapping to bend the plywood sheet into place over the stern half of the boat. Then I used dividers to draw a line about an inch out from the sides of the boat onto the underside of the plywood. Taking the sheet off, I then rough cut the stern piece.
The remainder of the sheet was then moved to the front of the boat, slightly overlapping the piece I had cut out for the stern. The overlap was near the rear bulkhead. I generally positioned the bow piece, then strapped it down, making sure I did have an overlap between the two sheets. I then drew the outline of the bow piece from underneath.
That left the extension that had to be scarfed onto the bow piece. Looking
through my scrap pile, I found a piece that was a relatively close match in
terms of color and grain pattern. Back to the work bench to scarf the extension
onto the area where the bow was going to be. This is imprecise work (at least
it was the way I did it). I made the extension piece quite a bit larger than I
thought it needed to be, simply to give myself room for error.
The next day, when the scarf had cured, I unclamped the joint, then lifted the foredeck piece up off the bench by placing one hand in front of the new scarf joint, and the other behind, and lifted, breaking the plywood about an inch in front of the scarf. Double sigh. Physics at work again. By lifting the 8 foot board the way I did, I put a lot of pressure in the wrong spot. Interestingly, the break was very clean, and in a line with where the epoxy stopped. In other words, the scarf held, the plywood failed along the line of maximum rigidity.
Thank goodness I had made the extension larger than necessary. I cut a fresh
edge on both the original piece and the extension, and made a new scarf joint.
The next day, I carefully lifted it into place, strapped it down to the boat,
and decided it was OK.
Next, I marked the location of the aft bulkhead and the main deck beam with masking tape on the sides of the boat. These would help me when I roughed out the cockpit opening a little later.
The next step was to paint the underside of the rear deck with unthickened epoxy. Then to paint the shear clamp, aft bulkhead, and stern end pour with thickened epoxy. This hurried bit of business was followed by lifting the rear deck and setting down on the boat in as close to its final location as possible. That done, I strapped the deck down to the boat, then began nailing the deck down to the shear clamp. My home-made nail guide worked really well. The nails were squarely in the center of the shear clamp, and pretty evenly spaced along the length of the boat. I followed CLC's recommendation to nail a few on one side, then move to the other until completed.
The only thing I would do differently the next time is that I would strike a chalk line squarely across the boat so that my nails start in exactly the same place. As it was, by the time I got to the stern, the nails were not aligned the way I would have liked them to be.
The foredeck went on in a similar manner. It is very exciting to see the
deck bend into shape like it does. I started nailing at the main deck beam,
moving forward. When that was finished, I moved back to the cockpit area. At
this point, the forward deck plywood was overlapping the rear deck at something
of an angle, and by about an inch on one side, and a couple of inches on the
other. I measured from the stern and drew a square line across the boat where the
two sheets met. Using a box cutter, I scored along the line, doing an initial cut
down into the deck piece. Cutting repeatedly, I cut through the top sheet, and
kept cutting until I had cut through the bottom sheet as well, creating a nice
straight, even line where the foredeck and afterdeck met. Then I finished nailing
down the decking.
Taking chalk line in hand, I marked a line down the center of the deck. Then using my masking tape indicators, I laid the plans for the cockpit opening on top of the boat, marked its location, then cut into the plywood a couple of inches inside the marks to open up the hull so that I could continue.
The seam where the two plywood sheets meet must be reinforced by having a block of plywood glued to the underside of the joint. I did that, then filleted the seam between the aft bulkhead and deck, and the deck beam and deck.
I was pleased to receive the coin, and thought immediately about how to add it to my kayak. My first thought - and one of these days I'll learn to throw out those first thoughts - was to inlay it in the deck near the front of the cockpit. But the coin is 2mm thick, and I didn't want to weaken the plywood deck too much (not to mention the fact that I wasn't sure I could cut away 2mm of plywood without cutting completely through the panel). Clever guy that I am, I decided to inlay the coin right over the deck beam. That way, I'd not weaken the deck any appreciable amount, and if I happened to cut through, I'd cut directly into the deck beam. Genius!
OK, stupid. As you figured out immediately, that wasn't going to work.
Actually,
I didn't figure it out until I had cut a 2mm circle into the deck plywood and
had fitted the coin. I was standing there admiring the fit, when reality struck.
It was a beautiful place to put a coin. But it was going to be darned hard to see
after it was covered up by the cockpit coaming. A true Homer Simpson moment.
My only saving grace was that the hole I had cut could be filled with epoxy and
would be covered by the coaming so as to hide the sillyness.
My mind wandered to the bow, and to the end pour just beneath the plywood. That would be the place. As you can see in the picture, Sacagawea fit nicely into place. The "Golden Dollar" is now a permanent part of the boat.
Per the recommendations, I sanded the deck, rounded the edges, then ran packing tape attached to
newspaper around the
circumference of the boat, about an inch below the deck line, making a drip collector.
Then the glass cloth was draped over the deck.
I found while doing the hull that a soft whisk broom really helps to lay the
glass in place and smooth wrinkles. Much better than my hand. The glass kind
of drooped over the roughed-out cockpit opening, but that was OK.
By now I was feeling more like an old hand at pouring and spreading epoxy. I waited a few hours for the first coat to gel, then cut off the excess fiberglass with a razor blade, making sure that the fiberglass was well bonded to the hull. The three coats went very quickly.
The only problem showed up after I had the third coat on and removed the
packing tape. 
Right up next to where the hull and deck meet were two layers of
fiberglass, which dropped abruptly to one layer, as shown in the illustration.
Furthermore, the cut edge of the deck fiberglass showed rather clearly as a
sharp white line through the three layers of epoxy. And not a very even
line, at that. I obviously had a case of the wobbles as I worked my way along
the boat cutting the fiberglass.
What I probably should have done is let the first layer of epoxy cure, remove the packing tape, then feather the joint at that time, sand the rest of the deck, then apply the next two layers of epoxy. Sigh. The good news is, I was planning on putting on a rub rail anyway. Now I am more motivated to do so.
Unlimbering the sabre saw, I began cutting the keyhole.
Rats! The rear bulkhead is actually about an inch forward of where it should have been. No big deal except that my cockpit keyhole extends about half an inch over the deck beam. Rather than depending on just the measurement from the rear bulkhead, I should have measured the distance between the bulkhead and the deck beam, then placed the cockpit open so that the forward edge just touched the deck beam. Ah well. It won't affect the strength of the boa, and I will still be able to get my size 11's out.
The coaming worked out all right (see the traditional every-c-clamp-in-the-neighborhood
picture) 
but there was one thing that I would have done differently.
Since I was working from plans, I marked and cut the filler pieces individually
by hand, which means that each one was a different size. They are covered by the
top piece on the coaming, but the irregular edge had to be sanded away on the inside
of the coaming, and I knew they were under the outside lip as well. If I had it
to do over, I would have stacked several pieces of plywood together, clamped them,
then cut out the coaming spacers as a unit. That way they would have all been
the same, at least.
CLC's recommendation to tack the forward element of each spacer to the deck
beam with ring nails worked really well to anchor the slippery pieces at the front,
and a clamp held the rear in place. I chose to glue the spacers down one night,
then the coaming top the following night.
I also chose to try to fill the stairstep under the coaming lip with thickened epoxy, which was much more difficult than I had guessed it would be. It meant getting a glob of epoxy on one finger, then trying to get the globified finger up under the coaming lip without smearing it everywhere, then spreading it nicely to fill the holes. The CLC book says just leave it be. Next time, I will.
Cutting the holes for the hatches wasn't difficult. I used the same chalk mark centerline I had struck for the cockpit keyhole. One difficulty I did have was in clamping the reinforcing pieces that go from shear clamp to shear clamp. I didn't have enough C-clamps with wide jaws to reach as far as I would have liked, resulting in reinforcements that are nicely glued to the deck right around the hatch opening, but come away from the deck about half-way to the shear clamp. I ended up filleting those gaps.
I did grind through the epoxy and fiberglass in a couple of small spots, so I patched with another layer of fiberglass and more filler epoxy.
I couldn't tell if that was the waxy buildup left behind by drying
epoxy, or the result of poorly mixed epoxy, or what. When I wiped the epoxy down
with laquer thinner, the swirly stuff was still there. So, I did a test coat with
varnish, and the varnish seemed to cause the swirly stuff to virtually disappear.
I'll have to research it some more this winter.
CLC recommends that you use a high-quality varnish and a foam brush. I agree,
with one caveat: the black foam brushes will occasionally leave a bit of black
foam behind which you have to pick out immediately.
The first coat of varnish will be bubbly and rough, but by the time you get to the third coat, it's starting to feel and look like a varnish job ought to look.
Above all, remember the three-foot rule. I had any number of small squiggles in the surface of the epoxy that seemed impossible to sand out. Well, varnish doesn't make them go away. On the other hand, the varnish makes the boat look so good that from three feet you can't see the squiggles anyway. What does show in the varnish is an uneven surface (those divots you might have taken out with your sander), and scratches in the surface of the epoxy that don't show up as shiny spots when you're done sanding. The point of the three-foot rule, of course, is that you can pretty much ignore anything that doesn't show up from more than three feet away. Personally, I took this rule very seriously.
I drilled pilot holes for the screws, drove the screws in and back out, then filled the screw hole and coated the screw itself with clear silicon before putting the screw and webbing in place. That's what CLC does, and that's good enough for me. I'll watch the deck this season to make sure no water is getting in under the epoxy and into the wood.
I made a lot of mistakes in putting this kayak together, but it came together anyway. I guess my best advice to anyone would be, don't be afraid of it. You can make mistakes, and it will be OK. In fact, it will be beautiful!
Martin