• Kayaks,  Tutorial

    Make your NDK/SKUK Romany or Explorer Seat Comfy

    A common complaint about NDK/SKUK Romany and Explorers is an uncomfortable seat. If like me, you find the seat itself comfortable, but have problems with the backband pinching your arse between the seat and the band, try this easy fix before removing the glass seat. For this project, you need: You also need a comfy backband to replace the poor excuse of a backband supplied with the kayak. I heartily recommend this one: For this project, you’re going to lower the back of the seat using sandpaper and a rasp, install a new backband, and make everything look pretty. Steps: Notes: You could also try to wrap some thin minicell…

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  • Articles,  Build It Yourself,  Kayaks,  Tutorial

    The Simplest of Seats

    Considering how restricted the seating actually is in the average cruising kayak, it’d better be comfortable. Hours of being jammed in an uncomfortable cockpit is no one’s idea of fun – cramped muscles, hard-spot aches, and that pins-and-needles feeling in the legs just purely takes the fun out of a day on the water. For better or for worse, commercial kayaks come with one sort of seat or another, but those of us who build our own have to come up with some alternative that’s comfortable. If you’re up for it, you can certainly carve yourself a fine mini-cell seat, and there’s lots of nice carved mini-cell and/or gel seats…

  • Articles,  Build It Yourself,  Kayaks

    Building a Perfect Kayak: Part Eleven

    Woe is I; I made a mistake. I forgot that for displacement, a ton is a long ton and not just 2000 pounds, which is what I’ve been using to convert the numbers in FREE!ship to pounds. With this realization, I’ve had to readjust part 10 for KAPER and the like. It also means that FREE!ship and HULLS calculate displacement so similar that it’s better than good enough for government work. The other good news is that the new KAPER numbers are very very close to the calculations that I did by hand way back at the start of this project. Looks like I still remember geometry and physics. And…

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