Fitting the Forms

Fitting the Forms

The strongback was initially glued and sparsley nailed  - I could see that it wasn't as straight as it might have been.  To rectify this, I predrilled and nailed every 150 while on a flat surface and this seems to have done the trick.

Some of the forms still were a little tight when attempting to slide them along the strongback  - these needed to be shaved with the jigsaw along the short face to ensure an inside measurement of 50.08mm x 127mm.

Spacers.
The front of each form mounted on the strongback should be exactly 1ft (305mm) away from the next (front of) form. To acheive this, I cut 3 pieces of hardwood ply into 141, 77 and 141 mm and glued them together.  This formed a U shape that fitted over the strongback with a little play.   These were then cut into pieces 290 long.


Gluing the spacer strips together.



Spacers cut to length (290)

I will need another 6 of these to lock the forms in place.

Trying the forms at the correct spacing.

When fitting the forms, I found that the stongback had a couple of spots that still needed a light plane to allow the forms to slide nicely.  Once this was completed, I was able to place all of the forms with the correct spacing on the strongback.  This finally gives an exellent idea of what the shape of the Kayak will be.  (although the photos don't do it justice.)


From the Bow. - Straight on

From the Stern.

Bow and stern stations.

12/10/2019

The gluing of the split stations on the bow and stern stations was completed and a test fit on the strongback looks good.

Bow Station

Stern station.

Split forms

11/10/2019

The bow and stern pieces were planed to a knife like edge. This was achieved by first drilling small holes through the form as a guide to show where to plane to on the other side and then planing just shy of the 5/8 line.




The split forms were prepared by using a stanley knife to remove 15mm (the width of the forms) of the paper from the middle of the form.  This was done as a guide for the bandsaw.  The measurements marked on the paper were for 5/8'' or 3/4'' thick forms but mine are 15mm.

The delaminated section was then removed using the bandsaw and then the split forms were sanded ready for glueing to the end form.  The paper side forms were glued first and held with masking tape and then left overnight to dry before the other side was glued on.

The thin ply removed from the stongback in the triangular section was glued into the open angled ends and clamped, this will still need to be nailed in place.  I tried some plaster screws but they tend to split the hardwood ply when driven home (even when predrilled)  so nails are the go.

Fitting the first form.

9/10/2019
Using station 10 the strongback was checked for fit and found wanting. A little planing (well a couple of hours of planing) was required.  After a little effort station 10 could be passed along the whole strongback.



The corners were chamfered ever so slightly and the whole thing sanded with 60 and 80 grit using a random orbital sander.

Shaping of the strongback

8/10/2019
Trimmed the strongback.
Damned inches!
The bow end had to be trimmed 1 inch down and 21 inches back and the stern was 2 down and 9 inches back.

This is the Bow end (above).

This is the Stern.

Today I finished the centre cutouts of all of the forms.  At this point, before the forms are mounted on to the strongback,  the outline of stations 7 and 12 were traced onto some 3mm ply to be cut out later and inserted into the kayak as bulkheads.

Trimming the forms.

03/10/2019
After cutting out the forms using the Jigsaw I trimmed them to about 1mm outside the line with the band saw and then sanded to the line with the bench belt sander.  A rigid oscillating sander would have been better for this job but I could not justify the purchase for this project. The bandsaw/sander work was completed over two evenings.

4/10/2019
Once all nicely sanded the hatched area in the middle (void for the strongback) needed to be cut out.  Time to pull out the old bench drill to prepare to jigsaw the hatched area out.

Preparing the forms.

The plans come with 21 forms printed on A2 that need to be cut out and glued to 15mm (17mm might have been better) ply, cut out with a jig saw, trimmed down with the band saw and then sanded to the lines.  There are a bow and stern form and 19 forms to be mounted on the strongback 12'' apart.

Cutting them all out took longer than you might think  - back to kindergarten for me.

This picture illustrates laying out the form templates in preparation for gluing.

I used a spray glue (Kwik Grip Spray Contact Adhesive).  Not all of the forms stuck properly the first time and I ran out of glue before completing half of the forms.  This meant that I needed to buy more glue and return the next day to complete the job - the form templates stuck better when a little time was allowed between spraying the paper and placing the paper on the wood.  After using 2 cans I still had one from to do - so I used wood glue.  BIG MISTAKE.  Although laid on the wood nicely it turned into a wrinkled mess. 😞

Beginning the work.

The plans for this Kayak are from OneOceanKayaks.com.
The plans have metric measurements, but they are really just converted imperial measurements.  This is very frustrating in a country where imperial measurements were gone before I was born.  Can’t buy things in 5/8, rulers and tape measures don’t have inches and I can’t estimate inches like I can mm.   Also, he puts things in cm – this isn’t dressmaking mate!
That sounded like I was having a dig.  The quality of the plans and the guide from OneOcean is top notch and I would recommend them to anyone considering building a strip build kayak.
Day 1.  30/09/2019
The forms require a strongback 2'' by 5'' - I am making this out of 12mm marine ply.  The ply comes in 2400 lengths so twice this length is more than enough.  To do this I ripped 4 * 5'' by 2400 and 4* 26mm by 2400.   Each piece was then made to be a different length so that the joins were staggered, and the resultant piece is 4800 long.  I still need to sand the edges and chamfer the corners.

Assembly Completed 01/10/2019:

This piece needs to be cut down to 15.5 ft and the ends shaped  - this will be done in a few days.