Yostwerks Kayak Building Manuals

Tom now has a few more designs and quite a bit of detail on building an inflatable kayak.  The new Expedition looks pretty cool and a bit more stable.  I’ll have to hunt around and see if anyone has built one yet.

Hannah really enjoyed the Sea Pup and managed to dump it a few times. She doesn’t have a spray skirt yet so she had to exit each time. Travis even gave it a paddle and except for one trip a bit too far out he enjoyed himself.

The Sea Tour paddled nice. There isn’t a lot of initial stability (at least for my inexperience) but it’s got some secondary stability. I managed to lay back and sit back up a few times. Need to watch a couple more DVDs before I try rolling all the way over. I still need a lot of work on bracing and turning but it’s a fun workout.

Here’s a pic to tide you over till I can write more.

Working with the glue was a challenge today. It was very humid today (at least for a desert). The MEK and glue evaporate so fast it cools down the vinyl and condensation forms. I didn’t have this problem with the Sea Pup because it was so dry out then.

I’m still on track for a Friday launch. Just need to glue up the coaming tomorrow night and add enough rigging to park a paddle.

I also made a simple backrest out of a piece of pool noodle. I still need to bungee it in place but it should work nicely.

Tonight’s tasks are to make a couple float bags and start gluing the deck in place. I should be able to get to the coaming sometime tomorrow and be ready in time for a launch on Friday or Saturday.

I’ve now got the gunwales, keel, and chines glued up and drying. I’ll sand on the seat some more tomorrow and figure out how to secure the boards to the aluminum angles. I’m quite confident now that I’ll be able ready to paddle when Tony visits Thursday. If it’s not too windy we can head up to Canyon Lake, otherwise the Guadalupe River is close and somewhat calm through town.

I wanted something to handle my current weight and maybe a little gear. After talking with a lot of people and looking at all the designs on Tom Yost’s site I settled on the Sea Tour 17R hull since it displaces at least 300 lbs. I modified the deck to take on the same shape as the Sea Rider to match the deck on Hannah’s kayak. I’m adding one more stringer 3/4″ down from the gunwale to reduce the span between the chine and gunwale and stiffen the frame up a little.

Home Depot had some AB ply so I picked up a full sheet of it for $25 and I picked through the 2×12’s at Eiberhart Lumber here in New Braunfels for a clear piece of yellow pine. I found one with a small scuff on one side and no knots. Total cost for all the wood was under $50 and I should have enough for two kayaks.

The 2×12 got ripped into 3/4 strips, 2 for the gunwales, 1 keel. Two more of those ripped in half for the chines, 5/8 x 3/4 each. To cut out the frames I first lofted them onto some light weight graph paper and glued them to the ply with some watered down glue. Once that dried I cut them out rough with the jig saw and finished them up freehand on the table saw.

I sat down with frames 4 and 5 for a test fit and will reloft #4 a bit taller tomorrow. It hits me right about the knee caps and I’ll need some more room for my calves to slide through easily.

I finished skinning the aft deck and around the coaming today. I’ll try to get the fore deck finished in the morning before it gets too hot.

The coaming finish isn’t a pretty as I wanted but it’ll do for now. Maybe I’ll replace it with some yellow HDPE when I get the time.

I cut out a larger sun for the deck. The other one just looked a bit too small. This one will get glued straight to the deck now that I know how well the other one glued up.

The process is pretty easy. Measure the void to be filled with the float bag. You will need the circumference of the hull on both ends and the length of the void. For the SeaPup that was 44″ long, 40″ at the wide end and 22″ at the narrow. I just measured around the outside of the hull for the circumference.

Cut out two trapazoids that looks like this, lay them flat on each other and glue about a 1/2″ strip around the edge. Put a piece of vinyl tubing (I used 5/8″ OD) in the tab and glue and clamp it so it won’t leak. Metal spring clamps with the rubber tip removed work great.

I used the same HH-66 glue thinned with MEK that I glued the skin with.  I would suspect that regular PVC pipe cement would work in a pinch.  One of these days I’ll get around to buying a can and testing it’s strength.

I had a bit of problems with a small leak around the tube. I glued two flat patches to either side and clamped it again. I let it sit longer before I blew it up the second time and it was still drum tight 3 days later.

As you can see in the picture below it does a great job of inflating the voids even when the holes in the frames are small.  Just be careful not to blow it up too tight our you might break the deck stringer.

It was 105F in the shed when I got home so I didn’t get too much done.

I glued some extra fabric to the bow and stern and pulled out some more of the wrinkles. Then stapled the skin to the gunwales and cut the excess loose.

I started working on the float bags but it was too hot to wear the respirator for long. I’ll move a table out under a shade tree tonight to finish up the bags and then start preparing to skin the deck. Hannah helped me design a nice smiling sun for the deck. I need to experiment with the glue a bit tonight to see if I’ll be able to put this down cleanly.