So You Want to Build a Kayak

Basically, there are three types of construction used in wooden kayaks. Each type of construction has its advantages and disadvantages. In addition, each type of construction has one or more books that are commonly referenced, and one or more major internet resources.

Skin On Frame

The Skin on Frame (SOF) kayak is likely the least expensive and fastest to build, but also may be the riskiest to build since the vast majority are built to "look right" in the eyes of the builder. No two are exactly alike. As a result, the boat may or may not handle in the manner you anticipated. SOF kayaks are built in a similar manner to the kayaks of Greenland and the Aleutians. They are typically constructed of a wooden framework, pegged and lashed together. The framework is then covered with fabric - canvas, nylon, etc. - and sealed. These boats are not ideal for trips since they don't have bulkheads. On the other hand, some folks like this style for rolling and day trips. These boats can be easily made with just hand tools if you desire.

For the past couple years, Building Skin-On-Frame Boats by Robert Morris has been the most popular reference. More recently Chris Cunningham's Building the Greenland Kayak: A Manual for Its Construction and Use has been released as well as Building a Greenland Kayak by Mark Starr. I've found Morris' book very readable although occasionally cryptic on some details. I've not yet read the other two. In addition to these, there are a number of other books that document SOF boats. The SOF in the picture is based on Morris' book.

The best web reference for building SOF boats is Qajaq USA's Greenland Kayaking forum. In addition to building boats, they have a lot of information on Greenland paddles, equipment, and techniques. A second source of information is the forum listed in the strip built boat section. A number of helpful individuals take part in both forums. Note: I'd highly recommend you "lurk" on the forums for a couple weeks before speaking up. This will give you an opportunity to see how they work so that you can take part in a constructive manner.

Stitch and Glue

Stitch and Glue kayaks are built from thin panels of plywood, cut into specific shapes, tied together temporarily with copper wire (the stitch) and then epoxied together (the glue). These boats are typically covered with a light layer of fiberglass cloth and resin on the outside, and often on the inside as well.

Because the final shape of the boat depends on the shape and number of panels used in construction, they are typically built from plans or kits rather than someone's "kitchen table" design. These boats can be finished "bright" or natural, or painted. It is quite common to see them with painted hulls and bright finished decks. Because the boat is built from plywood panels, it will have sharp chines or very noticeable "multi" chines hulls. The Stitch & Glue in the picture above is Greg Morse' Pgymy Coho.

Stitch and Glue boats may take a bit longer to build than the SOF style, but are easily twice as fast to construct as the Strip Built style. Plans are available for less than $100, with complete kits including precut wood, glass, epoxy, etc. in the $700- $900 range. Many people suggest 100 hours is typical build time for a kit. If you decide to build a stitch and glue from scratch, materials costs vary greatly, influenced most by the quality and grade of wood used (marine plywood vs. mahogany door skins) and the source of the glass and epoxy. Building from a kit requires minimal tools, with perhaps the largest tool investment being clamps.

The Kayak Shop: Three Elegant Wooden Kayaks Anyone Can Build by Chris Kulczycki is the most common text for Stitch & Glue boats. It is possible to build a boat from this book since he provides the offsets for three different boats if you're interested in learning the lofting process. Chris is the original owner of Chesapeake Light Craft, one of the major kit vendors. His personal biases do show up in the book, especially in areas where he differs from the methods used by Pygmy, the other major kit vendor.

An incomplete list of web resources for stitch & glue kayaks listed in no particular order:

• Chesapeake Light Craft. In addition to kayaks, they also build kits for rowing and canoes. CLC is located on the east coast. Some of their designs may be available as plans only.
• Pygmy Boats, located in Port Townsend, Washington. They have kits for kayaks as well as a wherry and a canoe. Their plans are not available separate from their kits.
• Shearwater Boats, located in Connecticut. Shearwater is owned and operated by Eric Schade, the brother of Nick Schade (see Strip Built resources.) Eric tends to specialize in Stitch & Glue. His boats are available as plans, kits, or custom built.
• One Ocean Kayaks in Massachusetts. Vaclav has contributed a number of good ideas to the hand built kayak community. Most of his designs are strip built, but he does have one new Stitch & Glue design that is getting very good reviews.
• web forum hosted by CLC. While the content is usually specific to their designs, the information is often helpful and applicable to other stitch and glue construction.

Strip Built Boats

Strip built boats take longer to build (250-300 hours) but the construction methods enable smooth, flowing curves that aren't possible in the other styles. Strip built boats are built on a "strongback" with a series of internal forms. The strips are most commonly 1/4" thick by 3/4" wide, and often have a cove on one edge with a matching bead on the other edge. Various types of cedar are most commonly used because of it's weight and its ability to bend. Other woods may be selected for their color or availability, but commonly will result in more weight or more challenging woodworking. Some builders have offset the weight by using thinner 3/16" thick strips.

The basic strip building process involves stapling strips to the forms while gluing the edges of the strips to one another. This use of staples makes it easy to hold the developing shape of the boat to the forms (and the strips to one another while the glue dries) but leaves a series of tiny holes in each strip at each form when the staples are pulling out. Some builders decide to build "staple-less" to avoid the black dots that result when the holes are filled with epoxy. Once the boat is built (hull and deck are built as two separate pieces) the boat is sanded and covered with fiberglass cloth and epoxy, resulting in a very strong, waterproof structure.

Custom built strip built boats are available from a number of different designers and/or builders. More commonly, plans are purchased, and the boat is built as a personal project. Strip built boats are not difficult to make, but do demand patience and persistence. Simple deck designs are recommended for the first attempt, but I'm certainly not the first builder to ignore that advice! Once the stripping process has started, continued progress can be made by spending 1-2 hours each evening on the project. In my case, I started laying strips Labor Day weekend, and had the boat on the water for it's "leak test" in early February. Would have been sooner, but the D'Backs World Series season slowed things down since I didn't have a TV in the garage.

Many people make their own strips by ripping boards on a table saw and then using a router table to machine the bead and cove. I chose to do so, using the boat as an excuse to buy a table saw. It is also possible to purchase strips. Typical cost of milled strips for a boat is about $400. The advantage of buying premade strips is that you can get them full length so splices aren't necessary, and they will be better quality wood. Buying quality wood in Phoenix was a very trying experience for me - so much so that I purchased wood for my next boats while I was in Seattle.

Strip built boats require more tools, but not a tremendous amount. A good quality Random Orbital Sander (ROS) is perhaps the primary item, along with a quality "low angle" block plane and a Japanese style "pull saw" for trimming strips. The staples / no staples decision will impact the number of clamps (primarily 1" and 2" spring clamps) you'll need. Making your own strips will require short term use of a saw (typically a table saw, but I've seen both bandsaws and radial arm saws used as well) and a router table and router if you use bead and cove strips. Some people have also used a planer to insure uniform thickness.

By far the best printed resource for building strip built kayaks is The Strip-Built Sea Kayak: Three Rugged, Beautiful Boats You Can Build by Nick Schade. Nick is the owner of Guillemot Kayaks, and the host of the Kayak Building Bulletin Board, without a doubt the best web resource for kayak construction of any type. Nick will describe how he builds a boat and why, but will also mention other methods, their advantage and disadvantage. The book includes the offsets for three of his designs and people regularly build them using just the book as reference. Nick may very well be the most influential individual impacting hand crafted kayaks today. (I've never bought anything from him but his book, but can't say enough about his willingness to help others enjoy the boat building process.)

Another book that is commonly seen regarding strip built boats is Kayakcraft: Fine Woodstrip Kayak Construction by Ted Moores. I believe Ted's construction methods result in a heavier boat.

Web Resources for Strip Built Kayaks:

An incomplete list of Plans / Commercial Shops in no particular order.

• Guillemot Kayaks of Connecticut. Nick Schade specializes in strip built boats, although he does have at least one stitch and glue design with others on the drawing board. His Guillemot is likely the most popular single strip built sea kayak, perhaps because of his book.
• Joe Greenley's Redfish Kayaks of Port Angeles, Washington. He custom builds boats and has four designs for sale as plans. He also will provide custom milled strips. His King is my current project. Joe hosts the West Coast Wood Kayak Rendezvous each August in Port Townsend, Washington. Last year there were about 75 hand made kayaks there.
• Vaclav Stejskal's One Ocean Kayaks in Massachusetts. His designs are similar to Nick's, but tend to have a bit more beam. His website is well worth reviewing, especially his builder's tips. He has an interesting approach to building the cockpit coaming and hatch lips that I used on my Return.
• Rob Mack's Laughing Loon Canoe & Kayaks in Massachusetts. He has plans for both kayaks and canoes, including several Baidarka style kayaks.
• Green Valley Boat Works. They sell plans for both kayaks and canoes. Their Caspian Sea design was developed by John Winters, and is one of only two strip built kayak design that I know of that are matched by a commercially available fiberglass or Kevlar boats. In this case, the Caspian Sea is a mate to the QCC500 built by Quality Composites in Wisconsin.

• Ross Leidy's site is perhaps the best personal website for handcrafted kayaks to be found. Ross has documented the construction of at least five boats and is responsible for the development of several unique ideas for outfitting kayaks as well as software for designing kayaks.
• Ken's Kayak Pages were one of the most influential references when I started building kayaks. Spidey only built one boat, but his ideas have been referenced many times by others.
• Bill & Beth Price from Idaho. They initially built a pair of Pygmy Artic Tern, then started to build a pair (if I recall correctly) of Redfish Returns. Bill then got carried away building a lightweight SOF version of the Return (click on the "X" in the lower left corner of their page for "Project X"). Since then he has built a Putz Walrus (a different style SOF boat) and a hybrid Sea Spirit using a stitch & glue hull with a strip built deck. Most recently, he built a Redfish Silver for Beth. Don't know what ever happened to the Returns...

There are lots of other personal websites to be found, but these will provide enough info to help understand the process. An enclosed shop is great, but individuals have been known to build kayaks in their apartments (every example I know of that did this is now single) or carports.

Finally, it is important to note that many people decide to build because they think it will be less expensive. This is rarely the case, especially for a first boat where you're building up a tool collection. Roger Nuffer from Albuquerque shared the following with folks on the Kayak Building Bulletin Board:

"Many times I hear or am asked about one of my boats, "How much did that cost?" or, "How long did that take to build?" To me those are difficult questions. Moreover, they might not be the right questions.

There is the cost of the wood and glass and epoxy. Then you have specialized tools to purchase such as an ROS or a Japanese pull saw. And the list goes on. Depending on how inclusive or exclusive the list becomes a kayak could run anywhere from 80 to 3800 dollars. I can buy a nice fiberglass kayak for somewhere in between those marks. I can save countless hours by going out and buying a nice high quality kayak. Just a couple months of overtime and weekend work will pay for it. So why go to all the bother of building?

For me there is more to the equation than dollar bills or time.

There is something very special about taking a chunk of wood, working it and creating what I consider to be art. Running a plane along the gunwales and watching the curls slide off the blade. Wetting out the hull with epoxy. Seeing patterns in the grain come to the surface. There is no price attached to this time or these actions.

Then when the boat is done and you take it out for the maiden voyage. Will it float? Are all the seams going to fly apart when they touch the water? Am I going to have enough initial stability to paddle this thing? What a feeling when the boat I made with my own two hands glides across the water effortlessly. What price can I place on this moment?

So if I take into consideration all the parameters of my life affected by building with my own two hands, I can see the true value of these humble yet beautiful creations. The constant puzzles of joining wood, the removal of tension and escape from working in my shop, the ability to create and make every decision, the knowing that I can improve on the next one. All this to me is a value beyond monetary funds and is time well spent.

I value the feeling of saying, "I made this in my spare time with a few hand tools. This is my creation." I am part of it and it is part of me. I can escape with my boat and paddle away from all that typically surrounds me.

80 dollars or 3800 dollars, it doesn't matter. The price and time are justified for this voyage of peace. I seek the calming affects and the serenity that my home made boats bring to me."