Comments on: Kayak Building Class

By: Alex Wetmore

Alex Wetmore — Fri, 31 May 2013 20:42:01 +0000

14 feet

By: sasa

sasa — Fri, 31 May 2013 20:36:48 +0000

hi
how long is that kayak

http://alexwetmore.org/?p=1075

By: Bob Oswald

Bob Oswald — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 14:18:51 +0000

I built a Pygmy kit years ago. Turned out great and I love it. I totally admire your adventure here building it from scratch, and in such a short time. I worked on mine every day a bit and took 10 weeks. Thanks for the outstanding report.

By: You Don’t Need a Beautiful Shop to do Beautiful Work | BreenBush Design

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 01:19:56 +0000

[...] has been holding a skin-on-frame kayak building class at Shop People. One student, Alex Wetmore, blogged about his class two years [...]

By: Amy Ream

Amy Ream — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 03:58:00 +0000

thanks, Alex, that was very helpful.

By: Alex’s big kayak-building-class adventure

Alex’s big kayak-building-class adventure — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 17:38:21 +0000

[...] I don’t own a kayak, and I don’t plan on building a kayak. Therefore, I am definitely NOT the target audience for this blog entry by Alex Wetmore. [...]

By: Alex Wetmore

Alex Wetmore — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 17:21:29 +0000

The coaming is just threaded in place. The thread is really thick though, I don”t think it is going anywhere.

One of the things that it has taken me a while to wrap my head around is the idea that bolting everything together isn”t better. These kayaks are really a space frame where any single joint can”t handle the maximum load that is thrown at it, but they are very good at redistributing stress around the kayak due to load.

The coaming is sitting on two frame pieces, so if you place your full weight on it all of that isn”t being transferred through the fabric. Any strong upwards motion would be transferred through the fabric, but the elastic on the spray skirt would probably release first.

By: Jimmy Livengood

Jimmy Livengood — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:46:15 +0000

Looks fantastic! Is the coaming pinned or screwed in place, or is the sewn connection to the fabric what holds it?

By: lemmiwinks

lemmiwinks — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 23:08:30 +0000

That was great, really interesting. Looked like a lot of fun, but I”m under no illusion that it wasn”t also a lot of hard work. Well worth the effort though, well done.

I reckon the class would be a good idea for subsequent builds as it’’s one of those things where it’’s good to have a few other people around for motivation and atmosphere.