The Shop > Wood & Stuff
Cedar Strip Kayak
sparky961:
Not to get carried away... (ok, yes I'm getting carried away but this is important [to me])... but good maneuverability can be had from any boat that you can easily put on edge (tilting the boat, not the body). This changes the profile of the hull that's in the water from the long sleek shape typical of a kayak, into more of a(n) (American) football shape. Turning is thus greatly enhanced.
Lew_Merrick_PE:
--- Quote from: joshagrady on January 08, 2016, 04:04:49 AM ---
--- Quote from: Lew_Merrick_PE on January 07, 2016, 11:15:35 AM ---
--- Quote from: Spurry on January 07, 2016, 05:28:23 AM ---
--- Quote from: Lew_Merrick_PE on January 07, 2016, 12:26:09 AM --- These are guys who can (95+% of the time) shatter an 8 inch dinner plate from 6000 m.
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Can I ask what sort of gun they were using? I had thought the Barratt was one of the best with a range of 1800m. :scratch:
Pete
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No, I cannot comment further.
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Can you at least tell us what they have against dinner plates?
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At 6 km, a "hit" in an 8" (200 mm) circular area is deadly accuracy. A dinner plate shatters when hit removing arguments about where the "hit" was made and whether or not it was truly deadly. [I, on the other hand, am a decent shot out to 1200 yards -- good enough that the longshooters would turn away before laughing at me. At 1500 yards, I may as well throw rocks at the target.]
Inside one of the "spotting sheds" at one of the 6000 m ranges somebody had carved, We endeavor to avoid having the motto of Ready, Fire, Aim!
sparky961:
--- Quote from: vtsteam on January 08, 2016, 10:06:43 AM ---Looks good Sparky. :thumbup:
Tables of offsets were originally developed from solid carved hull models constructed in lifts.
<... snip ...>
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Thanks. Now we need to have some really crappy weather that encourages me to stay inside and work on it.
I appreciate the history lesson. It explains the presentation of the data and makes me a bit less annoyed with it. :)
sparky961:
I was flipping through some pictures tonight and ran across a few I snapped while cutting the strips. I sawed them from 3/4" clear cedar, if I recall correctly. After sawing they all got a bead and cove as well. The pictures are a bit of a whirlwind tour, as this took many evenings and a few weekends to complete. I know think hope I have more than enough to complete the job and select some nice contrasting colours.
By the picture's filename, it looks like I was doing this in October of 2014... right around the time I switched jobs, so no big surprise that it got pushed to the back burner.
The attached pictures show my cobbled-together setup for ripping the strips. Looks like hell but works quite well.... maybe I should adopt that as a new motto.
I'll try to describe the pictures in less than 1000 words:
The device consists of shelf brackets attached to a bare studded wall that hold pieces of wood comprising the infeed and outfeed tables. The bandsaw is set up in the middle of these. My longest piece was about 12' so you can see this required lots of space. And for those who have been paying attention, yes this is shorter than the kayak I'm building. Strips will be joined strategically and doing so does not compromise the strength.
Attached to the table is a wooden fence covered in tape to reduce friction. There are three spring-loaded (elastic band) fingers that hold the board down to the table and against the fence. This is important because it's almost impossible to guide it by hand and end up with consistent strip width.
I noticed early on that my strips were getting wider and wider and couldn't figure out why. Turns out the saw was dancing away along the floor so I knocked together a little bracket that I clamped to the top of the saw and screwed to the wall. It didn't move until I was finished.
Fergus OMore:
Until I started to follow your exploits, I'd sort of forgotten Kayaking because I asked for a kayak on my 80th birthday and got a helicopter ride as a substitute. So be it!
However, a little Googling, reveals that one of the most popular British designers Percy Blandford celebrated his 100th Birthday a trio of years ago after 770,000 sales of kayak plans built on the old lath, plywood frames and canvas skins principles. If you think of it, this is little different to the old Inook designs. We had tougher things and less money and used worn conveyor belting from the coal mines to skin ours. They were perfectly successful and we would take them 7 miles out to sea and even go canoe camping.
The other alternative design was the 'folder' and used in peace and war but primarily using the same old construction mentioned but using round roads and sliding ferrules instead of continuous strips on a folding wooden ladder. Suffice to say that a Captain Roamer crossed the Atlantic in one! It was a Klepper from Bavaria.
The wooden racing kayaks were Struers and Jicwoods( ?) and built on the lines of skiffs and much to your current efforts. Thet were 17 feet long and only 1 foot 8 inches wide and needed hair parted down the middle to balance the things. Oe kept a straight course with a pair of pedals as foot rests. These were the originally K1's. Pure, flat water things. K1's today are white water things and almost capable of being rolled as the Inuuk used to quote, by a twist of the tongue.
I'm afraid to admit it, but we built the first GRP things on Tyneside. I suppose that there are still some of the old boys left.
Digressing, I recall being with a couple who were training with the Olympic hopefuls who had a brother who with a fellow marine commando had rolled a two seat military folder. Incidentally, K4's were gutted rowing shells.
So it is worth a delve into the film 'Cockleshell Heroes' and presumably records of looping kayaks in the surf prior to al this board 'nonsense' Reflecting again, there is the record of the old International Sailing canoes with about 109 square feet of sail and crossing the English channel at the end ofa 5 foot plank.
Have fun, we did
Norman
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