F1 kayak build time lapse day 4, part 1. Don’t forget that sound button, these bass grooves aren’t going to listen to themselves! The first kayak I ever skinned 20 years ago took me 14 hours and left my hands bleeding. The system I was following seemed unnecessarily complicated so in true Cape Falcon...
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Time lapse: F1 kayak build: Day 3, part 2
F1 kayak time lapse, end of day 3. The biggest driver of efficiency in my kayak building system comes from the years I taught in person. At first, these weeklong kayak building marathons ran upwards of 11 hours per day, but over the years I learned how to optimize every part of the process...
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Time lapse: F1 kayak build: Day 3, part 1
More work on the F1 kayak. This is the end of Day 2 and beginning of Day 3 on this buid. About 4 more hours of work for me, about twice that for a first time builder. For anyone looking to check out a complete build at a little slower pace I have a...
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Time lapse: F1 kayak build: Day 2
On day 2 of the build I prep and bend in the ribs, tie the keel on, and attach the stems at either end. This is usually a half day of work for me and a full day of work for first time students....
Time lapse: F1 kayak build, Day 1
In addition to slogging through instructional video updates, I’ve spent the last couple weeks building a couple of new demo boats for the shop. I decided to time lapse this F1 build. This first video represents about 4 hours of me working and roughly corresponds to what a student should be able to accomplish in...
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Video: Edge turns in the F1 kayak
Hit the sound button, I really like the song on this one. Standing 200 feet above the water the beautiful St. John’s Bridge in North Portland makes a convenient poor man’s drone. Kudos to Liz, whose hands move like cold molasses even on a vibrating bridge platform with cars zooming past! This 300mm footage...
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Video: On the water with the F1 and a solo canoe
Like every boatbuilding medium, skin on frame has advantages and disadvantages, but the ability to build rapidly and cheaply without forms or molds is a potent evolutionary force. When designing a new boat I start with a random stab at my goal, try it out, and then start chipping away anything extraneous. It usually...
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Liz and I making sure the boats still float
Liz and I making sure the boats still float and getting some nice images along the way. We switched between the smallest nesting/sailing canoe and her new F1....
13 year old Francesca’s F1 kayak build
Looking for a bit of inspiration to finish whatever boatbuilding project you’re working on? Check out Francesca here, who at 13 years old, just built my F1 kayak design. One of the ways I try to give back to the world is by offering all of my plans and instructional videos for free to...
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Can you take a skin-on-frame kayak on a serious expedition?
Can you take a skin-on-frame kayak on a serious expedition? Join artist, photographer and adventurer Claire Dibble for an online panel discussion with her and two other women who have made impressive source to sea journeys. In 2019 Claire built and paddled a Cape Falcon F1 solo 1200 miles down the Columbia river. To...
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Guenter’s carbon fiber F1 kayak
When Guenter, an engineer from Austria, proposed building a carbon fiber framed F1, I told him he was crazy. A few months later he sent me these pictures and a full PDF of how he built it. The finished kayak weighs 20 pounds, took 80 hours to build, and cost him $750 to make!...
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Building an F1 kayak in East Greenland
Here’s another build from 2019 that we were fortunate to be a part of. Max, the school headmaster in Tiilerilaaq, a small village in Tasiilaq East Greenland, reached out wanting to build F1 kayaks for the students at his school to use. Traditional kayaking has been extinct there for many years and they wanted...
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One last post from the Paddlesports Design class
One last post from the Paddlesports Design class at James Madison University. We had a few folks ask about the blue-teal-green gradient that student @zach.morrison_design was able to achieve. Zach was kind enough to let us share his time lapse of the dye process. The three different colors of acid dye were applied at...
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More photos from the Paddlesports Design class
More photos from the Paddlesports Design class at James Madison University — the students taking their boats out onto the water for a first paddle. One of things that is so cool about using skin on frame to teach industrial design is that it is that you’re literally skinning a frame, and with so...
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Check out the boats built by JMU’s Paddlesports Design class
Happy 2020 everyone! We took a bit of an instagram hiatus in 2019 to build the @actuallytiny house but are back in action here at Cape Falcon. So many amazing things happened in the Cape Falcon world last year so we want to share some of the highlights while we gear up to get...
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