17' Kayak / Nicholas Atkins
A solitary traveler
Building a boat is a highly personal thing. The choice of model and type, the anticipation of particular usage, at sea? surfing? sheltered waters? rivers, touring and camping. The need to make all these decisions makes the anticipation of the project as interesting as the actual building. And the final decision, "Will I like how the boat will look?" is very important.
The circumstances that prompt someone to make a boat are also interesting. Nick has spent the past few months working on an exotic carbon, kevlar and epoxy trimaran. Cutting edge, but the materials and the size of the project do not make it a pleasant experiance. So, in search of some quiet pleasure he is building a kayak for him and his dog to do some quiet touring.
With our present access to computer technology it is possible to prepare and CNC cut the panels of a kayak very economically and quickly, which leaves the interesting part of the job to be approached while enthusiasm is this at a high level.
The straightforward stitch and glue method used here is a very satisfying activity. The panels fit together simply and accurately, and in no time the boat emerges stitched and ready for finishing. Further, it allows alterations and modification to be introduced easily. In this case, the introduction of a dog hatch is an important part of the plan. After the stitching, filleting the seams and taping them is a quick process. Notice that he uses tapes cut from the roll of cloth. This is because tapes themselves and inordinately expensive, and have a hard seam at the edges which leads to more extensive sanding and fairing.
17/04/2011 - 17' Kayak / Nicholas Atkins
Nick builds a 17' Kayak step 2!
Here is Nick's second video on building his kayak. In this one he glues all parts together ready for stitching and gluing next.
Nick is taking some family time out over easter so he won't be making any new video's untill after easter.
14/04/2011 - 17' Kayak / Nicholas Atkins
Kayak now has video progress
Nick decided to document the progress on his 17' Kayak by photo and video. Its an interesting clip combining still, moving video and time lapse.
This is his first video called "Step 1 - Preparing Kit Parts", where he prepares all the necessary parts to build his kayak.
This video also demonstrates the huge amount of time he has saved by having kit kayak digitised and cut on a CNC machine.