East Greenland kayak build, Day 2-3, finishing the deck and bending the ribs. (There’s music!)
Towards the end of day two I flatten the tops of the gunwales, cut the ribs to length, and prep them for steam bending.
I always start my bending first thing in the morning on a new day because that gives me time to lash the keel and stringers on the same day, which helps to smooth out the hull shape while the ribs are still slightly pliable.
Rib dimensions in historic Greenland kayaks varied widely. Some kayaks had ribs that would have probably lasted decades and others were so fragile that they would have been replaced when the skin was replaced every year or two. Working with driftwood greatly limited choices so species selection and sizing probably had as much to do with availability as any sort of engineering considerations.
For my ribs I use freshly sawn white oak. This wood is expensive but it easily pays for itself with the time it saves and not having to deal with frustrating bending stock. My spacing and scantling dimensions just depend on the size of the boat that I’m building and my own experience watching skin boats deteriorate over long periods of time.
There’s a lot more nuance here than you’d expect. For example: a quarter inch thick rib on a 7 inch spacing will collapse pretty badly after about five years of hard use, but increasing that thickness by 1/64th of an inch will increase the lifespan of the frame by almost double. Bumping up an additional 64th of an inch, however, and now you start to have problems with getting the rib shapes you want easily. That’s just an example based on one size boat though, everything changes as the sizing changes.
With mostly rounded ribs the East Greenland kayak is the easiest of all my designs to bend, although none of them are particularly hard if you’re working with decent wood.
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