After finishing a 40 + year career as an Architect in 2011, in the late summer of 2013 I started building three Kayaks. In 1995 I built a Platt Monfort, skin on frame 15 foot canoe. It turned out to be “too tippy” for my wife, so I decided to make a single person vessel so that I could “go solo”. Since my 12-year-old Granddaughter was going to spend some time with us over the summer, my wife suggested I find a project that we could work on together. She was thinking birdhouse, however I suggested a kayak since my Granddaughter enjoyed paddling around in a plastic kayak the previous summer while “up north” in Michigan.
My granddaughter was very enthusiastic about the project and I believe she will be a kayaker for life. We selected a CLCboats.com, stitch and glue (S&G), 10’ Wood Duck for our project. She helped with layout, cutout, stitching, epoxying, sanding and finishing. She rewarded all of the family by paddling all the way across a local metro-park lake the first time she got into it!!
Instead of purchasing the CNC pre-cut pieces, I ordered nine sheets of marine Mahogany plywood from CLC for the three kayaks in order to control the placement of the beautiful wood graining of the veneer on the kayaks. I propped up all the 9 sheets of plywood in my garage and chose where each of the special graining would end up in each kayak. I took the liberty to slightly modify, or “tweak” each of the very elegant and graceful Eric and Nick Schade designed kayaks. I also chose where the feather joint splices would be placed for minimum distraction from the build. I chose Sapele for above the gunnels of the Wood Duck and Sea Island Sport, while I used Okoume for the lower hulls. I used all Sapele for the Petrel. I purchased Aspen locally for the light colored wood accents except for the Sea Island Sport stripes, which is Birch edge banding.
