It looks like a kayak!

This weekend brought me to a point where a lot happened.  It started with Steve Killing, the designer of the Venture 14 that I am building, e-mailed me not only confirmation of the fixes that I needed, but a complete markup of my CAD file, leaving no doubts in my mind.  Thank you, Steve!  I finished the the form blocks, mold extensions, and clamped everything into place.  This was actually a silly thing to do because the building form is not level and needs to be moved anyway.  Still, I just had to see what it would look like!

Next, my friend Todd came over and we walked through a lot of the steps as practice.  I had a number of planks that I messed up on in the first trial runs.  After making up a pile of clamping jigs, we assembled a small section to learn about all of the things that could go wrong.  I'm glad I did this, because there are a lot of things I want to change, plus working without the need for perfection makes it much more enjoyable.  I know now that I need a lot more C-clamps (sorry, Heidi), that knife edges on my coves truly are bad, and that fitting everything to the stem is not going to be a lot of fun (we sort of skipped that step!).  Although completely rough, I can see how pretty this is going to be when I'm done!

One thing that I've always wanted to do, but never tackled is steam-bending wood.  Since it is a requirement for this project, it was time to learn.  Rather than wasting precious stock for practice, I grabbed a couple of planks of oak flooring that I had (thank you, Dan Wood) and cut it to size.  After 15 minutes in a scrap drain pipe with an old Bissell steamer, we gave it a try.  It thought, no way is this thing going to bend, but it did.  Immediately, thoughts of all the projects I could use bent wood in came to mind.

After Todd left, I found the wood that I would use for the actual Kayak, some scrap CVG fir for the inner stems and what I think might be mahogany that I found for the outer stems.  The bow stem bent into place very nicely.  The contrast in colors between the fir and mahogany is beautiful!  It will be a nice touch to the finished product.  The stern stem, however, was a challenge.  I tried bending that alone-- big mistake!  With less than a minute to bend and clamp the wood and only two hands to accomplish that with, it failed miserably, with clamps and wood strips strewn hither and yon.  Fortunately, my wife and son saved me.  With six hands, the job was completed successfully.  Although there is a bit of splintering on one board, I think I can save it when the boat is finished out.

The next step will be the expensive one.  I must procure some epoxy.  Unfortunately, I must use the same epoxy that I will use on the finish, so I'll have to buy something like a gallon of it... just so I can use a couple of ounces to glue the stem.  Maybe the kids don't really need to go to college...