Turn the sound on, it’s kind of cool. I know what you’re thinking but this isn’t the same slow motion 1942 direct drive Parks Planer pornography I post every week… This time we are planing CVG Sitka Spruce! I bought this Spruce last year when I found a couple of rare, 15 foot sticks...
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Friday morning sidewalk score!
Friday morning sidewalk score! Clear cedar offcuts from a fence project. I can easily combine these with a clear strip off the edge of a construction grade 2×4 to make a lovely Greenland paddle at the cost of 6 hrs of labor and $2 of glue. (the last photos show a similar paddle which...
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Question for Greenland Paddle builders
Question for Greenland Paddle builders: Right now I’m re-shooting my entire free Greenland paddle building course to bring it up to the quality of the rest of our video courses, and also to add process updates and more info. Thinking about wood selection, generally I recommend the people not build out of any species...
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Video: For the record, I couldn’t pull it through either.
For the record, I couldn’t pull it through either. I cut my deck straps for our new boats a 16th of an inch wider than normal. I regret that decision. ___ This post was originally featured on our Instagram feed. See the original post and discussion here. Follow Cape Falcon Kayak on Instagram »...
Video: Liz doing the final finishing pull on her new kayak
Liz doing the final finishing pull on her new F1. This is a bit tricky to get right because you have to wait until the coating has set enough that you can smooth down imperfections without pulling off material, but it still has to be fluid enough that it will self level afterwards without...
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List of scavenged wood for the upcoming kayak build
List of scavenged wood for the upcoming kayak build: One pair of mortised kayak gunnels originally discarded because I just don’t trust the dark chocolate colored cedar in a rock garden boat. Another pair of gunwales discarded because I didn’t wanna deal with the shake (zillions of tiny cracks). One pair of stringers cut...
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Perfect or… maybe knot?
Perfect or… maybe knot? Today I cracked into one of the weirdest batches of bending Oak I’ve ever cut. Dripping wet, check. Straight grain, check. Quartersawn, check. Dozens of pin knots some of which weren’t visible on the faces or edges, WTF??? The occasional kick in the wallet from missing pin knots during purchasing...
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Earth pigment color test results
Here’s the finished results from our earth pigment color test. I’m extremely happy with how this turned out because I had always suspected that there was a much wider range of color possibilities, but you have to do the tests to check for chemical compatibility and also to build a reproducible color library. Based...
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Testing Earth Pigments
Today we are testing 20 different earth pigments mixed into the two part polyurethane we use to cover our skin on frame boats. This is a super expensive test, consuming about $600 in materials with 3 people working for 8 hours, but when we’re done I will have a color chart that not only...
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New bridle leather for kayak deck lines
I’m obsessed with finding the best materials for my boats. Bungee, rope, cloth, fasteners, whatever, if it’s on a Cape Falcon boat, we probably bought and tested every possible option. I use a lot of rope and bungee on deck these days but for some of my deck lines nothing beats leather. It’s strong...
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Video: Spruce score
Well it looks like I found the wood for my next canoe. I don’t usually spring for the fancy stuff but it’s pretty hard to pass up a board like this…...
The secrets to amazing steam bending
The secrets to amazing steam bending are: getting good wood, building smart jigs, staying organized, and avoiding everything you find on the Internet about the topic (except for maybe this post). I’m getting set up here to do a run of steam bent keyhole cockpit coamings with freshly sawn white oak from Zena Forest...
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Building catamaran boards from salvaged wood
Portland has a law that older homes slated to be torn down must be deconstructed which has given rise to an entire salvage industry here. A couple days ago I headed over to Reclaim NW for a smoking deal on some pine and fir for a couple new sets of catamaran boards. I’m not...
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Building exact copies of Greenland Kayak deck line toggles
Exact copies of Greenland Kayak deck line toggles. The kayak is number 67 in Harvey Golden’s book Kayaks of Greenland. (Photo shared with permission) This particular kayak has a mercifully simple toggle set. Some are quite intricate and complex. I used Elforyn artificial ivory and although softer it really does work very similarly to...
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Video: laminating deck beams
Well heck, I had just finished the prep on a set of gunwales for my next build when I caught them in a raking light and noticed a bad section of shake. Shake is where the wood separates internally along the grain from wind or falling stresses. Unlike normal cracks shake is often nearly...
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