Build Your Own Kayak - Part Three
story by Tim Neville
appeared in May 2008 Canoe & Kayak
With helping hands, Tim doesn't need the clothespin trick
When I set out a few months ago to build a wood-core fiberglass sea kayak from a Chesapeake Light Craft kit, I did so firmly believing that whatever skills I lacked in things like, say, woodworking and fiberglassing could be overcome with elbow grease and romantic perseverance.
I was right, mostly, and the project rapidly became my favorite thing to do. On summer evenings I'd head out to the garage and spend hours getting sawdust in my hair and running calloused fingers along sleek lines that grew truer each day. The chines took shape. The bow stood crisp and proud.
But then reality stormed in on a cool fall day, just after I'd entered a critical fiberglassing stage on the hull's interior. I'd spent an entire Saturday trying to position blankets of composite fibers into a U-shape along the cockpit and then soaking those sheets in epoxy that would harden to give the boat its strength.
It was a horribly unwieldy and messy process. I needed a dozen hands to hold the material in place, and the sheets wrinkled as I tried to wet them with a roller. The next morning I was horrified at what I-the boob who once called himself Epoxy Man-had done. Bubbles had formed in the glass overnight, making the cockpit blister with ugly pustules that did nothing for strength.
Worse, the weather turned icy, making it impossible for additional fiberglass to cure. The boat languished in my ineptitude and sat idle for months. Doubt seeped in. Why had I even bothered?
And then one day, flipping through our local paper, I come across a picture of a boat builder teaching students how to fiberglass the interior of a beautiful strip canoe. Whereas I'd tried to hold the fiberglass sheets in one hand and paint resin on with the other, the teacher had used clothespins to secure the material in place. The genius! With a warm shop! I called him immediately and muddled my way through a plea for help. He barely blinked. "Sure," he said. "Come on out."
Now 37 years old, Greg Bridges first started working with wood at age seven. Since then he's built houses, tables, cribs, and at least 10 canoes and kayaks that are so unfathomably beautiful-slender strips of luxurious Peruvian walnut and rich Alaskan cedar coaxed into crafts he can unload for upwards of $10,000-that a one-hour paddling trip will turn into two hours of gabbing with jealous onlookers. My boat, wrinkled and coarse, has all the splendor of a leper next to his works of art.
But Greg is patient and understanding, having already coached a whole community of aspiring boat builders like me through the process. From 14-year-old Cris Smoot to 87-yearold Harvey M. Waldron Jr., Greg's shop fills up several months each year with noobs like me desperate to learn. He's shown us how to weigh resins and hardeners to mix epoxy properly and the miracles a one-inch belt sander can perform. He's helped me mount the deck beams without nails and explained how a spritz of white vinegar will take wet epoxy off your skin. Most of all, he's been encouraging. "It's your first boat," he says, as if there will be more. "You got those bubbles because of gas in the wood. Don't worry, we can fix it."
And fix it we do. Over the next few weeks I fall head over
heels in love with my boat again, warts and all. I duck out often
and early to Greg's farm on the outskirts of Bend, Oregon, where
I stack juniper into the shop woodstove and play with his yellow
labs while it warms up inside. Eventually I move around his shop
like I halfway know what I'm doing, deftly removing a beer from
the fridge before I get epoxy all over my hands. I cut out the bubbles
and fiberglass the hull again in a process that takes a tenth
of the time. "It looks like a new boat," Greg says when it's done.
The deep wood tones fill my heart with fatherly pride. Before long
I'll be ready to put on the deck. Even better, I know I'll never have
to paddle alone.
Next time on Building the Boat, it all comes together.
| Posted on Thu Mar 5, 2009, 5:22 AM by John |
| If you are considering purchasing a fiberglass canoe or simply want to know some information about fiberglass canoes then you must visit. All the information and details you require for your canoeing needs. http://fiberglass-canoe.info |
| Posted on Sat Jun27, 2009, 11:16 PM by Burn Schauerte |
| Was looking for kayak styles pictures. More for identification. There is more than one type I gather. I have 2 17 foot fibreglass kayaks which only have 1 opening in the top for the paddler. Their normal color is sky blue gel coat. And yet all the kayaks I see on top of cars is the 2 piece type kayak(where the top seems to be a different material than the white fibreglass bottom and the top is either yellow or blue or orange and has lids for compartments fore and aft of the paddler. Is there a name for what I got and what is normally used these days. I noticed that the 2 piece are as short as 8 feet and go longer. Your the first person I am actually asking this question to. |
| Posted on Sat Jun27, 2009, 11:17 PM by Burn Schauerte |
| Was looking for kayak styles pictures. More for identification. There is more than one type I gather. I have 2 17 foot fibreglass kayaks which only have 1 opening in the top for the paddler. Their normal color is sky blue gel coat. And yet all the kayaks I see on top of cars is the 2 piece type kayak(where the top seems to be a different material than the white fibreglass bottom and the top is either yellow or blue or orange and has lids for compartments fore and aft of the paddler. Is there a name for what I got and what is normally used these days. I noticed that the 2 piece are as short as 8 feet and go longer. Your the first person I am actually asking this question to. I am in British Columbia |
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