I have ribs

Rib stock is special as it needs to be air dried, not kiln dried like most wood. The grain also needs to be clear and going a particular way to help the bending process. So we decided to cheat and order rib stock from a guy who runs a qajaq building school out west. Unfortunately the shipment got lost in space. So we have been doing a mad scramble to come up with decent wood for our ribs. Someone finally found someone else who went out and cut down an oak tree for us.

So into the shop came logs that had to be processed by us, or I should say Chuck. I had started bending ribs with some of the stock we had left over and was having a rough time of it and feeling really bad about breaking pieces. Then I got my hands on the green ribs and everything fell into place, it was like night and day. And then it was late at night and time to go home.

I got back to the shop on Saturday to find my qajaq frame had been moved and my rib stick had disappeared. Yes, I had a minor melt down as it had taken me days to figure out how to make that darn thing. So an hour later I had another one made and started bending ribs again.

After getting all the ribs bent, I placed the keel strip on top of them to check them. A few will have to be blocked to meet the strip and a few I took down a little. Next I pegged the ribs into place and planed down the ends of the gunwales for the stem plates.

I taped cardboard to the ends of the gunwales to work up a pattern for the stem plates. I am so excited at my progress, I think this project might actually get finished.

Here is Ken lashing his stem plate to the end of his qajaq.

Back to work

I managed to make it back into town so I could get to the work shop Monday night. I had the fun task of lashing all the deck beams into place. We used a flat, waxed, artificial sinew for the job. I chiseled a trough on the outside of the gunwales for the sinew. This way the lashings will be recessed and shouldn't rub or be visible under the skin.

Meanwhile Danielle was back and working on steam bending her ribs. Here she is sighting down her qajaq to see if they line up nicely. You can see the ones she has laid out to go next into the steamer.


Here is the steam box we have set up and the high tech device we use to bend the ribs.








Ken was next and managed to get all his ribs on too. Next weekend will be my turn, so I kept an eye on these two.

XC Ski Break

After the Martin Luther King Holiday I had a very busy week planning my first xc ski trip. I joined the Solar group to build my qajaq and they have tons of other fun activities and classes. I decided to take cross country ski lessons with them. The lesson took place in Roscommon, Michigan at the XC Ski Headquarters.

So I invited myself up to my friend Sharon's place for the weekend. She is into xc skiing and had been inviting me for a while, so no, I'm not that pushy.







We actually had quite a group for the weekend at their hunting lodge called Nawaka. We had 10 people for the weekend. I didn't know they had snowmobiles, so I got my first real ride and it was a blast.

Saturday morning Sharon, Patty, Amiee, her new friend Jamie and I went just south of Mio to go cross country skiing. It was a lot of fun and I fell up and down every hill on our first loop. This was only my third outing on my new skis and of course the lesson wasn't until Sunday morning.































I got up early sunday and drove the hour and fifteen minutes to Roscommon for my lesson. This is a shot of the 3 mile long driveway out of Nawakwa.





I met 24 other Solorites on a very cold 10 below morning for our class. I finally learned how to get up after falling, coulda used that the day before!





I drove back to Nawakwa where we had another fun packed snowmobile ride and a nice relaxing evening in front of the fire. Sorry, no photos of the gathering by the fire, too tired to remember.





I drove home Monday just in time to get some more work done on the qajaq.

Measure twice...cut once

This weekend it was time to add the deck beams. This is challenging as it is a compound angle and no, I didn't know what that meant. The gunwales are at a 73 degree angle, so the deck beams were cut at a 17 degree angle where they meet. Then you have to figure out the horizontal angle since the boat curves in at the ends. It's pretty simple, just place the piece of wood across the gunwales and mark underneath along the gunwale where it meets. Cut, flip, repeat and you should have a perfect fit. The simple things are hard for me, but I eventually got them all cut.





The next step was to drill 2 holes thru the gunwales and into the deck beams for dowels. What I didn't realize was that every time I pounded the dowels into place, the gunwales shifted. By the end of it the gunwales had shifted an inch so the ends no longer met & I once again had a wonky kayak. I was very frustrated and mad at myself. Up steps Master Chuck to the rescue. We only had to replace the last deck beam in the stern and then we pounded and pulled the kayak back into shape. Whew! Once again I have a symetrical kayak.

Daniel is a Senior in High School and is building her own qajaq at school for credit. She has had a few setbacks, so we invited her to the shop to get back on track over the Holiday weekend. She was starting over with new wood for her gunwales.

Chuck had a little accident and had to re-attatch his "tailfin".

Look Dorothy Ken is sewing! He's actually lashing the deck beams to the gunwales for added strength and support. This is my next step.

Getting nowhere fast

Well...this past weekend wasn't very productive. I tried to get the gunwales in the forms we have, but since I added some uplift to the bow they didn't fit into them. It took 3 of us an hour to wrangle the kayak into forms with clamps and pieces of wood. I was too tired to take a picture of the contraption we finally came up with.

Then I started working on sawing the ends They need to be filed down so they come together on a flat plane. And basically that's all I got done in 6 hours, this qajaq may never get finished.

Then to cap off the weekend I borrowed Chuck's qajaq to take to a pool session on Sunday. I drove all the way to Ypsilanti, where EMU has an olympic size pool. This would have given me a chance to see if I liked his dimensions. Unfortunately the pool was closed, so I still don't quite know what size my kayak will be. I'm thinking a 20" beam, my nighthawk is 22".

So my homework is to read up and figure out how to install the deck beams. Hopefully it will begin to make sense...to me and I'll make some progress this weekend. I previously said you don't need to be a rocket scientist...I might have been wrong.

Groundhog Day

The first saturday of the qajaq building workshop was a repeat of everything I had done up to this point. Thus the title of Groundhog Day. I'll start off with a picture of Chuck and the ladies working on scarfing two 8" sections together for a gunwale. They all got much more done than I did this Saturday.

I started by finishing the mortises in the gunwales for the ribs. Then I clamped the wood to a table in order to plane out some rough cuts that would have shown underneath the skin. I had started with a 2x4x16 piece of wood that was roughtly ripped in half for the gunwales. This is when one of the shop elves pointed out how warped my wood looked. Upon further inspection I agreed that the wood was pretty "wonky"; this is a technical term for those of us who have no woodworking experience. This is why it took someone else to point out the flaws in my gunwales.

My friend Ken had arrived with some pretty sweet wood that did not have one knot in it. All of us were jealous of his good fortune. Allan & I had spent the better part of a cold and snowy Saturday searching different lumber yards looking for just such a find. So Ken made a call for me and an hour and a half later I was back in the shop with 2 new pieces of clear, 1x4x16 pine for my gunwales.

I managed to get most of the marks for the deck beams, ribs and various body parts onto the new wood before it was time for me to head off to work. I had cut down the previous gunwales to 15', which would've given me a finished overall length of 16". I decided to make the qajaq longer and not cut down the new pieces of wood, so I couldn't just transfer the marks from the previous wonky gunwales. Why you might ask? I have no idea, I'm flying by the seat of my pants and making changes on a whim. This isn't rocket science or I wouldn't be doing it. lol!

Sunday afternoon I was back at the shop and hard at work. I got all the mortises cut and cleaned out for the ribs. Then I ripped the gunwales down from 4 inches to 2 1/2 inches and attatched "triangles" to the bow end of the gunwales. I took a 4" section and cut in on the diagonal like is suggested in the Mark Starr book. I glued them in place, then used duct tape and clamps to hold them in place. Chuck also made this suggestion as he finds that the bow of his first qajaq gets buried in the waves instead of going over them.

Monday night found me marking out the curve of the gunwales and trying to figure out exactly what the shape of the bow will look like. I am very reluctant to start cutting for fear of not liking it. But as suggested I will take off only a little at a time until I'm happy. Not much else was accomplished on my qajaq, but I helped others with their questions.

Building a skin on frame Qajaq

I recently attended Qajaq USA's sypmosium in Michigan in August of 2008. My friend Sharon had been telling me about it for a couple of years. So I decided to attend after making the switch to a traditional wood paddle and learning how to roll.

I was a little wary of the weekend as I was such a newbie and didn't have a hard chine boat or the traditional Inuit paddle. I should have been more worried about being drawn into the darkside even further. The club had qajaqs, paddles and tuiliks for those to borrow who didn't have their own equipment. Everyone was so helpful and nice that I had an unbelievably good time. So much so, that when I go back next year I'll be bringing my own sof qajaq!

I have joined a group of 10 people who are each going to build a skin on frame qajaq. Some of us love to paddle and have no woodworking skills, that includes me. Others are woodworkers and jumped at the chance for a new project, can you believe that? Then there is Chuck, who came up with this crazy idea to ask people to join him and share the cost of renting a building space. He will be working on only his second sof. It is a historical qajaq that has never been built before. Talk about taking on a challenge, what was he thinking?

Chuck will not be an instructor, no teachers here, so hopefully all of us have been busy reading all the great books that are available out there. There are also some very nice people who have also built a qajaq or two that have offered to help us. Hope they stop by the shop soon.

Did I mention we only have the space for 2 months? Guess where I'll be every weekend, but it will be totally worth it. In the end I will have a beautiful boat built just for me.

Just last night I helped set up the work space. Thankfully Chuck has all of the tools we will need. I also went shopping in my neighbor's garage and found every hand tool pictured in the books for the build. Once I got everything set up I actually got a head start on my qajaq...boy is this going to be fun. Can't wait to meet the rest of the group and hope they feel the same way.