Stern stems laminated

The inside and outside stern stems are laminated at the same time but separated with some poly. The inside stem remains on the form and is shaped before the strips are laid down. The outside stem is installed after the stripping is done and then planed and sanded to shape. That's 12 strips laminated together with epoxy. Dave says it was a messy job but manageable.

Table saw setup for ripping kayak strips

This worked amazingly well. Absolutely perfect strips every time. Two horizontal featherboards and one vertical kept the very flexible 16 and 20 foot strips completely under control. Faster and easier with two people but even single handed it is remarkably low drama, as Dave demonstrates below.

Dave's stripping

cedar that is.....
No progress on the GIS but Dave has been busy making cedar and redwood strips for the kayak. He's managed to cut 16 and 20 foot lumber down to 1/4" strips, all by himself. A very thin kerf 7-1/4" blade mounted on the table saw and a couple good feather-boards did the trick. Next step is to saw each strip in half yielding the 1/4 x 3/4 strips, then it's on to beading and coveing.



All of the stations are now mounted and aligned on the strong-back, ready for the first strip.

In the beginning there was just some wood.

My friend Dave and I decided it was time to do a bit of boat building. Dave is building a strip kayak "The Return" by Redfish Custom Kayaks and I am building the Goat Island Skiff designed by Michael Storer. This will be a log of our building adventures.

Dave had to first build a strongback for the kayak stations.

I started by building a work frame to make handling the plywood easier. It's a great idea I picked up somewhere on Australia's Woodwork Forums.

Tank the shop cat made sure we did things right.

Total time spent: 6 hours