Joe's Kayak Rebuild (Again)

In 2000 I built my second kayak, for my son Joe who was 6 at the time. It was an experimental variation of a skin on frame boat, using fiberglass draped unsupported on the wooden frame as the skin. It sort of worked. Here is a blog of the initial build:

http://teambluemonkey.com/bz/Kayaks/JoeysKayak/Kayak.htm

Joe used it until he outgrew the cockpit sometime around 2005 or 2006. Also, the unsupported skin, though exceptionally light and strong in tension was very weak in sheer. 

Story:

We were visiting family down in Coos Bay sometime around 2004. We took the kayaks. We did, at one point, put the boats in at Sunset Bay, in the Ocean and actually surfed waves into shore. Way fun!  But this day we were puttering around the Empire Lakes, near SW Oregon Community College.  I set Joe's boat down on the relatively sandy shore but there were a few marble-sized pellets. I put Joe in the boat on the shore before pushing out into the lake. He had only gone 29 yards when he said that the boat had some water in it. I told him not to worry because all the boats leaked a bit. He said "no, this is a lot of water."  

When he came back in we found a couple inches of water and a nickel-sized hole where a pebble had punched right through the skin. We searched the van for some duct tape but came up with only chewing gum. Two pieces sufficed to get joe back on the water and the fix survived the rest of the trip. 

So when it came time to rebuild the boat I opted for cardboard-backed fiberglass skin, like I'd been using on all the boats since. I also enlarged the cockpit and widened the beam from 17 in to 19. It was a bit too tippy as originally built, though the kids seemed to handle it fine. Oh, I also sealed the bulkheads, added hatches and filled the peaks with pourable, form-fitting closed cell foam. A real expedition boat. 

That worked fine until Joe outgrew that too, about 2009. So I made him another boat to get him through high school. Since I had no use for this boat, I gave it to a friend who had a younger child. He had no indoor place to store it, so it's basically been outside for 5 years, and now his sons, too, have outgrown it.  

It just came back to me this week, and as coincidence would have it, I'm building another kayak with a friend right now who has a 9-year old son. So I patched it up, rebuilt the cockpit coaming and floor and patched a couple of holes in the skin. Other than the cockpit the structure was still very strong. 

Here it is. Still a nice looking boat. 19" beam. 12'3" length. 27 lb. 2" (or less) draft. 

New cockpit coaming and floor. Much simpler, lighter and stronger. Not bad. Only a couple evenings work and the boat should easily last another 5 years. 

The old seat cushion still fits fine. It is now a none-standard spray skirt size, but I think a small could be modified to fit. All that remains is for the young man receiving this boat to repaint it and give it a new name. 

Another Kayak

I wasn't really planning on blogging this project, so I didn't really take a lot of pictures.  But I have a few so I will attempt to take credit for another sorta cool project. 

Long story. 

I'll try to use links to avoid 'splaining too much here. 

Ah, found it: http://teambluemonkey.com/bz/Kayaks/default.htm

That gives the initial and interim storyline of building kayaks and earlier trips. 

So I've built 9 kayaks:

1) Big Green two holer canvas on frame kayak. 

2) Joey's (yes, I experimented on my boy before risking my own life)

3) Mine (Wave, rebuilt once and needs another)

4) Elaine's. (Spot)

5) Nan's. (Skye)

6) Jason's. 

7) Joe's second (he outgrew the first)

8) Elaine's second (Vincent)

9) This one. 

The above link should describe the transition from oil-base paint-impregnated canvas skin on wood frame to fiberglass skin on frame, to glass on cardboard skin on less frame, and the continued evolution of this method. 

This is the first pic I have of this kayak, though Nan has a few earlier ones. You can see why I use this method. We get a really nice shape in exactly the size we want using only $25 worth of cardboard and a couple of 2x4s. 

Actually, I want to use this method to make a formula1-ish three-wheel electric vehicle someday. It is important to select the right curves in a number of parts of the boat, including the stem, stern, keel, sheer line, and deck profile. I must be getting better because this boat turned out better than any I'd built before. 

Here the top has been glassed and the hatches cut. 

I invented a new way to put the coaming on, eliminating the tedious old method of hand fitting numerous small pieces of 1/2"x1/2" plywood around the 3D curve of the cockpit opening. Instead I cleaned out a used up calk tube, and filled it with peanut butter consistency resin, made with talc filler, and squeezed it out around the coaming. Using a quick handmade tool we shaped the goo into the desired 1/2" square cross section. After curing and a bunch of filing with a wood rasp (that stuff is hard), we glued a 1/8" strip of plywood onto that. Voila! Coaming!

I tried a new process of smoothing the skin by filling the cured weave with resin thickened with talc (standard inexpensive filler). That turns out to not sand so well because the heat of the sander causes the filler to melt, gumming up the sandpaper in seconds. I could only wet sand it by hand. Very laborious but it left a silky smooth finish that paints extremely well. And shiny.

Oh yeah, the green is just the base paint coat. Other design motifs will be painted on later.

Here it is painted and fitted out, ready for its maiden voyage. We had to hurry and get the boat done so we could get up to the cranberry bog prior to the season ending. That adventure is linked here: http://bzkayak.blogspot.com/2014/10/a-trip-to-cranberry-bog.html

And here is the new boat (middle).

Not a bad project, and a great way to spend time with my daughter's boyfriend. I started sometime around the start of August and finished in mid October. About 10 weeks, though once school started I had a hard time getting to work on it. Thoroughly enjoyable project. 

Coffee Table / Wine Rack for Paul's Wife

Paul, a friend from work, asked me how to edge glue to boards together.  Having learned from the greatest (Jim Strawn) early in my career at Boeing, I asked: "What are you trying to do?"  "Oh, you're making a coffee table." After a bit of discussion I invited him over to my house because he'd never done anything like this before and I already have all the tools and a reasonable shop. 

We also discussed design ideas, and two things shaped this table:

1) Four-foot, 1"x8", pine boards.

2) Paul's wife likes wine. 

So we decided to make the table with a wine rack underneath. 

It's hard to find pine in large dimensions, so we just cut three 4'x1"x8" boards into a bunch of 16"x1"x3.5" and glued up each leg out of four of them. Serious clampage needed. We ran out. There was a trick to cutting the grooves in the legs for the horizontal table and wine rack supports (2"), but I don't have pictures and will forego the description here. Suffice it to Say that it was a very cool trick that worked quite well. No fasteners whatsoever. The glue-up left the table legs a bit crooked, so we stacked some bricks on the high corners to hold it flat while the glue set. 

We used a couple stray sticks and wine bottles on the table saw to model the proper structure for optimal wine stackage and came up with 2" gaps between 2.5" supports. Here is the lower wine rack being glued up. 

The length and width of the table was determined by the size of the table top, which was 3 boards edge-glued with biscuits after running the interior edges through a jointer. About 21" wide and 48" long. The outer edges of the legs are 2" in from that. 

It was a trick getting the lower wine rack into the box after it was glued. I thought I could triangle it in one of the sides or the top, but ended up having to cut off and reglue one of the end tabs. Here it is being reglued, and it will never come out of there again. 

Here is the table unfinished (Paul says he will stain it dark), and in Paul's living room. 

The whole project took about 5 hours of shop time.  Three easy evenings. 

A desk for Joe

Joe is moving out of the dorms and into an apartment. He needed a desk but wanted something different, larger than was in his bedroom. So we drew up some plans. He wanted L-shaped for more desktop area.

He also wanted lots of shelves. 

Couple photos missing here. We visited the furniture store to see what we liked. An L-shaped desk with drawers and not upper shelves was $1200+. Screw that. Then we took a trip to Wassankari to find some reclaimed doors for desktops. These monsters were 1 3/4" thick particle board with 1/8" plywood walnut veneer on two sides. Plenty heavy. We used shelves to provide storage and support the ends and a funky 3-leg L-shaped thingy to support the joint. Here the doors are cut to size, but the hemlock edges to cover the open particle board have not yet been installed. Nor have the patches to fill the door hinge cut outs. 

Here's the main shelf with a cut out for the computer monitor. Artistic facia is installed to cover the birch plywood edges. 

The side shelf goes next to the previous shelf. Just needs to be finished. Joe chose walnut stain. Dark, but it looks good. 

Stained desk with one coat of varnish set up with unfinished upper shelves to see if it all fits. Close enough. 

And here it is installed in the apartment. Lucky we looked at the floor plan to see where the window was when we drew the plans. Fits nicely with just enough room for the bed on the right. Plus it's modular. The whole thing disassembles to 7 parts with 19 screws. 

Less than $300 in materials and 3 weeks of easy work. Never spent more than an hour or two at one time. Plus Joe did most of the work, learning a critical skill that a young (poor) person needs to know. 

Movie Marquee

Here's a quick and dirty fake movie marquee to be used at a high school graduation party. Some one else will paint and letter with the three movies showing at the party. 

I started with two sheets of 1/2" plywood. Good stuff. ACX. I drew out the desired plan, drawn from a quick image search on Google. I liked the deco one. I then cut out the major shapes of the top and ripped the 3/4" and 2" strips on the table saw from one sheet of plywood. Those pieces were then mounted with glue and finishing nails onto the other sheet of plywood with 1/4" gaps separating all the pieces. After that I just trimmed the top edge of the underlying plywood to match the mounted pieces. Easy-peasy. About 4 hours work. 

A Teardrop Trailer

I've always thought a teardrop trailer would be great for making a quick and comfortable camping getaway.  I got so excited about this project that I interrupted the airplane to work on it. 

I looked all over the web for plans but just decided to draw some up myself and go for it.  I'll post the plans I drew and discuss the choices made.  

Here are the initial drawings I made to get a feel for the size of the trailer. I had to go measure the car to get an idea of how the trailer would look while being towed behind it. That's a 2012 Mazda 3 Hatchback. Does it look like that?  

The first requirement of a teardrop trailer is ASAP (as small as possible). For two people that means a double bed (54"x75"). The sides will be made from a single sheet of 4'x8' plywood, so let's just make the thing 8' with a 3' tongue. To look proportionate, I selected a 24" wheel to match the car. They have wheels as small as 12" but they look silly. Had I been really cool I would have matched the distance of the wheels of the trailer behind the car rear wheels to the wheel base of the car, making it look something like a Gamma Goat (look it up). But that would have shortened the tongue and moved the trailer wheels too far forward and made the tongue weight unacceptably light (or even negative). I'm an airplane guy so weight and balance is everything. At this point I'm planning on using a normal trailer axle with leaf spring suspension, which puts the axle at a height of 12" (24" wheel) and the frame 3" above that. The car has a clearance of 8" and the trailer looks funny because it's twice that. Using a torsional spring trailer axle would solve that but they're hard to order and Gateway of Lewiston didn't have any in stock. You will see that I will try a couple of methods of lowering the trailer in the subsequent drawings, none of which made it into the final product. Next time (if there is a next time) I will special order the torsion spring axle. It should rride a lot better than leaf springs too.  

The height of the trailer:  I started by assuming that I would used the entire 4' width of the plywood sides for the height of the trailer, and subsequent drawings would later bear that assumption out. This puts the top of the trailer about 8" higher than the top of the car. Another good reason to find a way to lower the trailer. 

Here is the first plan drawn, and the plan which I eventually went with, except for the raised frame around the axle, which was an attempt to lower the frame. It would have been too tricky so I abandoned the idea. Pretty much everything else in the drawing made it into the final product: the curve of the entire top, the kitchen counter height, the rear counter extension, the lower interior shelf, the door location and size. Before I cut any metal, I searched the web for fittings. I found a great site (Frank Bear Teardrop Parts) that had awesome smoked glass teardrop doors with screens and locks. Expensive, but worth it. The two sizes were 26"x34" and 26"x28". Had I been going for a lower profile, the 28" would have been my choice, but I am old and decided that I wanted to be able to sit on the edge of the bed with my feet dangling out the door and then swing my head out the door without ducking. Otherwise I would have to crawl into the thing head first and crawl out tail first. I'm too old for that, so I went for the larger door. That choice is reflected in this drawing. Also, using the entirety of the 4' width of the side plywood and subtracting out the 2" thickness of the ceiling, the 2" thickness of the steel trailer frame, and the 6" thickness of the bed leaves 38" headroom, enough to sit upright without fear of banging my head anywhere.  Note the cooler dimensioned under the hatch, and the depth of the counter top. I checked and rechecked all of these dimensions, even taking into account the kitchen countertops in my house, which were designed for my 5' tall wife. This plan works. 

One final attempt to draw a more sleek curve and lower profile. From the outside it looks awesome, but introduces a number of problems. I would have to raise the bed 6" to clear the wheel well, which would reduce headroom significantly. Plus I'm not just goin to waste that space. I'd have storage under the bed and access now becomes problematic. I don't want to lift the bed every time I want something, so exterior doors are a must, necessitating hinges, seals, etc. The counter now moves foward, making it harder to use, and the interior shelf is forward and lower and will impinge on raised knees. I decided to go with the first plan. 

Enough design. Let's cut metal and get to the pictures.

I spent about a week looking for a used teardrop or even a trailer frame that I could modify to suit.  There wasn't much out there so I just went down to Gateway in Lewiston and bought all the steel and hubs and wheels and axles and hitches for the frame.  Here's the first step-- welding the 2" frame. Let's make it square, shall we?

Three foot tongue should be enough. We'll find out later. 

52" x 75" for the bed (it's a double) and the rest of the 8 ft for trunk storage. 

I didn't know there was a special kind of spring for a low profile trailer, so I set up the rear shackle straps above the frame to lower it as much as possible. I bought 24" wheels because I wanted them to be about the same size as the car's. I can't stand trailers with tiny wheels. The end result is an axle 12" off the ground and the frame 3" above that.  Kind of tall, but perfect feet dangle height when sitting on the edge of the bed. And that puts the top of the trailer 8" above the top of the car. Next time I'll use torsion spring axles. They didn't have any at Gateway. 

Here I am fitting the axle with wheels onto the frame. It was easy with the trailer levelers already welded on. I just rolled the axle under and lowered the frames supports until it was just the right height to fit the shackle bolts. 

Closer view of fitting the axle to the frame. 

And the legs fold up without tools. Nice. All painted up and ready for the top. 

A friend and co-worker left for Austin and sold me a pile of plywood (good stuff) for very little. This seemed like a good use for it. One side is going to be oak, the other birch. Rough guess on all the hand drawn curves and door sizes. Actually, I drew a 1' grid on the plywood in pencil and transferred the curve from the plans to the plywood by hand. Slight curve smoothing on the larger scale produced something that closely resembled the plans. 

Here are the sides bolted onto the frame. It's an 8 ft frame and an 8 ft piece of plywood, but you can see that is leans forward of the frame 6" inches for reasons that I'll explain later. So I'll have to hack in another piece to finish out the curve on the back end later. 

No, I couldn't wait to try cooking on the counter. Damn fine eggs and bacon in the garage. Plus this early fitting helped me decide on a smaller battery and propane tank just to keep the tongue weight acceptable. 

I wanted to keep the longer counter so I hinged it and put slide out supports under the sides of the counter. 

Here's my son Joe helping. 

I found a nice little coffee pot for camping. Turns out it makes the best coffee I've ever had by far. I use it all the time now. Serious. It's called a mocha pot or a stovetop espresso maker and I highly recommend you get one if you like coffee. The secret to its operation is the lower pressure pot, which waits until the water is near boiling to force it through the grounds in one gentle pass. It is so steaming hot on completion that the steam can burn your thumb while you're pouring if you're not careful. 

Got all the 2x2s in and the inner 1/8" plywood interior wall. Wiring's mostly in and insulation on the front. Time to skin the outside soon. 

Here's the electrical system. 120 AC to a 12V 30A power supply that powers everything and charges two 10Ah batteries that have internal current limiting circuits. 

It took a bucket of warm water, three family members and a few choice swear words to bend the first skin into place. 1/4" is as thick as I would ever try this. 

I spent about a grand on top quality fittings. Here is one of the awesome smoked glass doors. 

Here's the interior birch plywood. It was quite easy to slide in there and bend into place. It's coated with two coats of varathane on the inside. Two things to notice here.  After a bit of a search I found these USB/cigarette lighter outlets with the 5v converter built right in. Charge your phone right over your shoulder. And the curve of the forward cabin makes for the perfect angle for sitting up and watching a movie on an ipad that is set on the shelf at the back of the trailer. 

12v 3 speed reversible fan and exterior lights all wired up. Ready for insulation and skin. 

Rolled it outside on one of the few non-rainy days in February. 

The trunk on the front is for the folding chairs and table, and the awning and rug that makes the outdoor living room. 

The hatch was tough to make. I made a jig to match the curve of the back of the trailer and here is one of the frames being glued up from 6 strips of ripped 1/4" pine. Turned out very strong and light. 

I think it needs wings. 

I cut the door openings on a guess and got the radius wrong. Here's the fix. Tacky, I know. 

But the door fits now. 

The hatch was hard. Plus I forgot to draw the mark where the underlying supports would go at this stage. So later, after I had put the skin on the hatch, I had to have Nan crawl in there with a flashlight and a pencil to mark the supports while I held the hatch down over her. Funny. 

The entire top is sheathed in 10oz fiberglass, but not the sides. 

The sides are finished with 5 coats of spar varnish. The birch side looks awesome. The oak side is nice too, but doesn't have near the depth of grain as the birch side. 

More later. 

It's later.

It doesn't look like much but I spent the last couple evenings filling the weave of the fiberglass with a polyester resin filler made with talc. It mixes up to a consistency slightly better than that of drywall mud and goes on about the same with the use of a plastic trowel. My first coat left a few divots that were exposed by sanding. The second coat was much thinner and quicker and will be sanded tonight. I expect it to be very smooth after the 120 grit sandpaper. 

Got the final door on and the awesome Tuft and Needle mattress inside. Then I watched a movie on my iPad inside and then took a nap.  I frickin' love this thing. Here it is outside. It still needs a couple things:  safety chains, trailer lights, another coat of paint, corner trim, the cooktop and a propane tank. Curtains! Face it. Like every other project, it will never be done. 

Fenders!  Duh!  Bumpers too!

And hatch gaskets to keep out the rain. 

Got the tailights installed. It was sort of an adventure. And here's the cute bumper partially installed. Still some fitting to do. 

Stylish teardrop fenders are $300 to $500 plus shipping. I found these minimalist steel fenders for $30 at the local RV shop. I think I can make them work. 

Ok, it's never officially done. I still have to make the front trunk and purchase and install the cooktop. But it's unofficially done and can go camping with use of the Coleman camping single-burner stove. You can see that we have the living room installed. It's comprised of a light awning, two folding chairs and a folding table, and it makes all the difference in the camping experience. Seriously, it puts a roof over the whole thing and makes it an extremely comfortable place to be. Let's go camping!

Here it is from under the awning. Notice the small ring at the edge of the roof that holds the pole in place. Nice. No banging. 

Got the brakes fixed and a hitch installed on the Escort and even though the greens don't quite match it still looks pretty proportionate. 

U

Ready for camping. 

Oh yeah. Forgot to show you the kitchen. Here it is after dinner with the wine, cream soda, coffee and bread still out. Good quick Friday nite camping trip. Took half an hour to go get the trailer from the lower yard and load it up with clothes inside and food in the cooler. Then we were rolling. Five minutes after arrival we were unhooked, had the legs down, the hatch up and dinner cooking, wine in hand. Tear down takes about ten minutes more because the dishes all have to be clean and locked in place and nothing can be loose in the kitchen.