For anyone thinking about building a skin on frame kayak in New Zealand I wanted to share this email I got a couple days ago from a student where he discusses materials sources and building methods. I figured this might be helpful to some people even if you’re not building one of my boats:
“Brian, Here’s some photos of my recently completed west greenland kayak from your scaled up plans. I’m real happy with the boat and thought your course was excellent for a 1st skin-on-frame build.
I’m in New Zealand, and had to research what locally available coating to use. I went with Resene’s Uracryl 403 two part system which I think is ideal for the purpose. It does have solvents, so a paint respirator and good ventilation are appropriate. It doesn’t have a maximum recoat time, so an additional coat or touch-ups can be done at a later date with good chemical bond due to the solvents. It worked well with Corey’s 840 xtra tough skin.
I found that leather sewing machine belts are ideal for greenland deck lines. They are inexpensive and nicely rounded.
BBS Timbers in NZ has a large selection of Western Red Cedar for gunnels, and stocks white oak for the ribs. I also used Malaysian Kauri in a few places like the masik.
I had reasonably good success with steam bending. BBS timbers couldn’t tell me whether their white oak was kiln dried or not – I assume it was. For the forward ribs, I did break a few, but did manage some good bends using a leather belt. I presoaked the ribs in a pvc tube filled with a fabric softener solution for a day or so, though I later bent some that I had not pre soaked, and I can’t say there was a noticable difference. It was more important that the grain was straight. I was also going to try presoaking in the hot tub, but the wife wouldn’t allow…. The coaming was more difficult….but the 3rd one came out. If it hadn’t, I would have laminated up with thinner strips. The problem was more with irregular grain on the long stock, as the sections where grain was straight bent fine. I used a 3″ pvc tube as the steam box, and a pressure cooker on a propane camp stove generated plenty of steam.”
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