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Building a Perfect Kayak: Part Two
In the last installment of Building a Perfect Kayak, I laid out the design criteria for my new kayak and ran into some software problems. Mainly, with the software that I’m using, I couldn’t export rounded stations to build the forms for the kayak. Because Hulls, the boat design program I used, is made to produce plywood panels, it lacked the features needed to accomplish these rounded stations, so I downloaded and tried a program called Sketch-Up. Kayak Forms First, for those readers that haven’t built a canoe or kayak yet, I should state exactly what the forms are. Forms, or stations, are simply the cross sectional shape of a…
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Building a Perfect Kayak: Part Three
If you remember from the previous article, I had just figured out a way to output forms from Hulls by using an extra chine above the design of the kayak. This extra chine gave me a common point in all the forms, and with the click of two buttons provided me with perfectly aligned offsets to plot on paper (albeit paper which looks like a brown paper bag, because I’m unable to buy white roll or tracing paper in Grand Marais, MN. I can’t wait to see my wood choices or maybe wood choice. Pine looks okay, right?) After I figured this out, I charted the Righting/Heeling Moments for the…