Yesterday I laid out the deck beams, cut the tenons, and installed the deck beams. Traditionally these would have been through mortised and sometimes shouldered, sometimes not.
I place the tenon in one quadrant of the deck beam because it’s easier to build this way and creates accurate shoulders that helps the gunwales hold their flare.
Finally, the joint is pegged through the tenon and then diagonally through the beam into the gunwale. This isn’t traditional on West Greenland Kayaks, but was commonly done on East Greenland kayaks. I do it here because it’s faster, easier, and stronger than the traditional diagonal lashing method.
I’m being pretty careful with my layout here because I’m building a plan set from this boat, but generally this work doesn’t need to be very precise. Unlike furniture joints which have to be perfect to be strong, kayaks actually benefit from slightly sloppy connections, which makes the process a little bit more beginner friendly than cabinet grade mortise and tenon work.
Flattening the tops of the gunwales with a block plane leaves a giant pile of cedar curls that are perfect for starting the woodstove.
___
This post was originally featured on our Instagram feed.
See the original post and discussion here.
