Elaine’s Cardboard Kayak -- Vincent

First, it’s not really a cardboard kayak.  It’s a skin on frame kayak with a cardboard skin reinforced with fiberglass.  In other words, it’s a very tough-skinned frame kayak.  The design originally came from a Greenland kayak design published in The Rudder magazine in 1921.  The plans were adapted to oil-painted canvas skin on a wood frame by George Putz as documented in his 1990 book “Wood and Canvas Kayak Building”.

We built one canvas on wood frame boat and felt uncomfortable with the frailness of the skin.  We then found an alternative skin from experimental aviation.  Molt Taylor is the designer/builder of the Aerocars that flew shortly after WWII. You may have seen them in museums. The wings fold and detach and the car drives away.  Molt went on to design numerous, ever-more-efficient aircraft, eventually culminating in the Micro Imp (http://www.mini-imp.com/micro_imp.htm). At the time, he was watching the cost of aircraft materials skyrocket and so came up with this new process using inexpensive, readily-available materials. It's called the Taylor Paper Glass Method (http://www.mini-imp.com/taylor_paper_glass_(tpg).htm). Basically, it's cardboard encased in fiberglass. I borrowed that idea for this kayak, making both the bulkheads and the skin out of it

 

Not ordinary corrugated cardboard, but 2-ply laminated 90# Linerboard of .046" thickness is used for the station bulkheads and skin.  This can be found at most stationery stores for around $3 for a 28”x36” sheet. The beauty of the Taylor Paper-Glass method is its simplicity.  Just draw the patterns on the card board and cut them out.  Put fiberglass on both sides and the bulkheads are ready to hang.  Tools necessary are scissors and a throw-away chip brush for applying the glass resin.  Simple polyester resin, found at any hardware store under the brand name Bondo can be purchased for $18/quart or so.  The wood for the frame is from two 8' 2x4s The 2x4s are ripped to thin strips on a tablesaw.  After that, only a handsaw and chisel are needed to fit the strips to the frame.  The most expensive material is the roll of 6-oz fiberflass to cover the cardboard skin -- $100 or so.  Here are a few pictures of the frame going together.

Here's the boat with the cardboard skin on, painted in resin (cardboard is a fiber, you know), prior to covering the whole with glass.

Finally, cover the cardboard skin with fiberglass, finish the seat and padding, and paint it.

And if you’re going to make a personal kayak, you should personalize it with your own paint job, as you see on the kayak on display.  Elaine chose Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” as a pattern for her paint job.  We painted it by hand over a couple of weeks, working from a large poster reproduction of the painting.

Here are the family’s boats on the van during a trip to Glacier Park.

And here we are paddling on Lake MacDonald.

Cheesy Fireplace

Not much of a project but I haven’t posted a blog here in a while. I’ve been doing projects, just not posting them. 

Anyhow. I was sitting in this very seat, next to the Christmas tree, across from the tv, when I thought I needed a fireplace. Well, this is a rental, and there is no gas on the property, so I’d have to settle for something cheesy and electric.


I picked out this $200 thing from amazon but I didn’t want to just hang in on the wall. It would stick out 3”. And it’s a rental so I couldn’t just cut a hole in the wall 


So I made this fake mantle from wood that was leftover in the shop. I have no construction pics because I am out of the blogging habit. But I started with a 4x4 piece of 3/4” plywood, cut a hole in it to match the size of the fireplace, then built a 2x4 frame behind it. Then built the footing around it, also 3/4” ply with 2x4 frame under. Slapped them together, then built up the top piece from a 2x10 board and a bunch of leftover trim to give it more of a 3D shape. Then filler and paint. 

No, your eyes do not deceive. It needs a bunch of coats  of paint so I used some leftover tan for the first coat. Then two coats of white enamel to finish. 

The whole thing is about 60 pounds and just leans against the wall. I can move it anywhere in a couple minutes. 

I do actually think out dimensions and draw up plans first. This one I drew 3 times before I started cutting. I’ll try to remember to post a pic of the plans. 

Whole thing took about 8 total hours of working time. And now I sit on the corner of the couch drinking coffee, watching tv and warming myself by the fire. 

Oh yeah. I always draw up plans a few times to get a better idea of good dimensions that have good aesthetics. I have an old napkin holder full of these. Notice the scribble. These are the third and fourth tries.