So I’m following Cape Falcon Kayak’s wonderful video course in skin-on-frame kayak building, and it’s coming together fast! I only put in time in the evening after dinner, and it feels SO nice to finally not watch tv and make something in the shop. Working with cedar and (mostly) hand tools is so gratifying. In this sequence, which took me 3-4 evenings, I peg the gunwales together with dowels, cut tenons into the deck beams ends, fit them into the gunwale mortises and peg those, too. In the next sequence I’ll steam-bend the ribs, tie on the keel and stems and the frame with be finished and ready for skin!
Final prep of gunwales, keel, and stringers.
Stringers have a rolling bevel that I cut with a hand plane.
The ends of the gunwales are kerfed and pegged.
Deck beam tenons are cut with a chisel, but I found diving grain hard to control...
So I started using a saw to cut the tenons: worked much better.
The one curved deck beam is laminated from fir and cedar strips. The thin strips were hard to cut on my poor-quality table saw so I used epoxy to fill the gaps.
Beams fitted into mortises and checked for size.
Holes are cut and dowels hammered to hold the beams to the gunwales at the proper angle.
Holding a beam and hammering a dowel.
Cutting dowels flush after pegging.
Some deck beams are a little high, so I plane them down slightly where they join the gunwale.
All pegged and trimmed and ready for bent ribs to define the hull shape!