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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…
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Building a Perfect Kayak: Part Four
With the design steps over, I moved on to figuring out what wood to build this craft with, but, first, I fired off an email to Gregg Carlson suggesting a few improvements for his excellent program, Hulls. I suggested that he should have the program calculate the Block and Mid-ship Coefficients, which would help simplify the process for inputting the data into KAPER. He promptly wrote me back, and mentioned that he was thinking about setting up a project on Source Forge, and that he had been thinking about adding a feature to Hulls that would round the forms for strip building. I’m crossing my fingers, and if you have…
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Building a Perfect Kayak: Part Five
Background Way back in episode two, I explained about station forms and what they are used for, and I mentioned the strong back. If you don’t remember all that dribble then you may want to head back there for review, because in this episode they are the main character. Attempt One So, after I had finished milling the strips I went to the local lumber store and picked up a couple sheets of 1/2″ CDX plywood (BTW, including labor after this episode my kayak costs $593.76, so far.) The forms of the kayak are laid out on this CDX plywood and then cut out and aligned on the strong back.…
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Building a Perfect Kayak: Part Six
Those Little Setbacks in Boat Building My old strong back was beautiful. Built from some of the best 16′ 2x8s I’ve ever seen, and topped with a lovely almost clear 16′ 1×6, the strong back was straight true, and had proven it on several canoes. But as all great things come to an end, my strong back ended its life on a burn pile in the woods somewhere. I gave it away before moving to Minnesota, and they left it in the rain and the snow, and by spring, it was done. Firewood it became. My current strong back, unlike my old one, is a hunk of junk. Somehow, somewhere,…
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Building a Perfect Kayak: Part Seven
Having finished the bottom of the kayak, I flipped it over and for the first time got to see – I mean really see – my kayak. It was a stunning moment. Not only did the stems look true to each other and not twisted (I guess all the work I did beating the heck out of my strong back worked,) but also the shape and rise of the sheer line was fair and beautiful. I quickly cleaned up the shop and got the tape measure out. The first and only measurement I took was from the rear deck, which is much higher than I had hoped, so I’ll have…
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Building a Perfect Kayak: Part Eight
A perfect kayak not only is one that performs perfectly in all the aspects that you desire, but one that you are building and have designed can only be perfect if everything goes correctly, the shape ends up as you wanted it, and then when finished it performs better than anything else that you’ve paddle. Such a perfect kayak would fail as a learning experience. I’ve often found that I and other people that have worked for me learn more from the mistakes they have made on their own, than having their hand held along the way and achieving perfection. I figured this out with my first and only $60,000…
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Building a Perfect Kayak: Part 9
With the fiberglassing finished on the bottom of the kayak, I flipped the kayak over and started in at the Layback Lounge. If you recall from the now many previous chapters of this building log, I needed to do a cockpit recess to get the back coaming height down to a level that would allow layback rolls. Although not as low as many Greenland kayaks, nor as long as some low volume kayaks, I wanted to get the lip down to about 8 to 8.5″. To do this, I had to make a huge recess in the kayak. Designing the kayak for a recess like this allows a good amount…
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A Thousand Words For One Image
“Lastingly successful art triggers audience responses that are ready to happen in the culture as a whole. Regardless of how perfectly a photographer’s work rends a subject, it is bound to fail unless it strikes that chord that elicits a common emotional and visual response.” From Galen Rowell’s Inner Game of Outdoor Photography, Galen Rowell, 2001 The sunrise broke over the distant mountains. It broke across hilltops that swam in a deep white fog on a fall morning in the Smoky Mountains. The morning was cold and I stood with my small hand-me-down 35mm camera and shot a few pictures while shivering and try to hold my camera steady. Next…