Cape Falcon Kayak

North Alaska Kayak Frame Build timelapse. Video 7 of 12

January 2020September 2022Leave a comment

Not the most exciting video but still part of the process. Here we are tying the diagonal lashings on every other deck beam....

North Alaskan Kayak Frame Build time lapse video, 6 of 12

January 2020September 2022Leave a comment

North Alaskan Kayak Frame Build time lapse video, 6 of 12 One of the more ridiculous aspects of this build was the need to fabricate peaked deck beams and then carve them to look like natural crooks. We put a lot of effort into making them match the look and shape of the deck...

North Alaskan Kayak Frame Build time lapse. Video 5 of 12

January 2020September 2022Leave a comment

North Alaskan Kayak Frame Build time lapse. Video 5 of 12. Here we begin building and fitting the rest of the peaked deck beams. Reverse engineering an artifact is a lot more challenging than building a boat from scratch. The original builders would have collected natural crooks throughout the year and then let what...

North Alaskan Kayak Frame Build time lapse. Video 4 of 12

January 2020September 2022Leave a comment

North Alaskan Kayak Frame Build time lapse. Video 4 of 12. In this video we laminate a couple of tall arched deck beams, and test fit all of the straight deck beams. A quick, easy form for one-off laminations like this is just to use a scrap of three-quarter inch plywood with number 10...

North Alaskan Kayak Frame Build time lapse. Video 3 of 12

January 2020September 2022Leave a comment

North Alaskan Kayak Frame Build time lapse. Video 3 of 12. In this video we spread the gunwales and mass produce the straight deck beams by marking the stock on the kayaks and then using a home made jig to cut the angles. North Alaskan Kayaks actually have more deck beams than ribs!...

North Alaskan Kayak Replica Frame Build time lapse video 2 of 12

January 2020September 2022Leave a comment

North Alaskan Kayak Replica Frame Build time lapse video 2 of 12. In this video I make the spreader and the capture forms and bend in some test ribs trying to figure out a rib length formula. We re-ribbed each of these boats three times to get them to exactly match the survey drawings....

North Alaskan Kayak Replica Frame Build time lapse video 1 of 12

January 2020September 2022Leave a comment

North Alaskan Kayak Replica Frame Build time lapse video 1 of 12. In preparation for our upcoming release of two extremely detailed North Alaskan replica kayak building videos on our YouTube channel, I wanted to take a moment to upload the time lapse I created during this build. I’ll be putting up a few...

Guenter’s carbon fiber F1 kayak

January 2020September 2022Leave a comment

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!...

A few more shots from the F1 Max and Kamilla built for the school in Tiilerilaaq

January 2020July 2023Leave a comment

A few more shots from the F1 Max and Kamilla built for the school in Tiilerilaaq, a small village in Tasiilaq East Greenland – more details in the last post. From Kamilla: “The whole idea was that the kayak belongs to the school and will be used by pupils to learn paddling. Max has...

Building an F1 kayak in East Greenland

January 2020July 2023Leave a comment

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...

Exercises in efficiency: Modifying the tiny house

January 2020September 2022Leave a comment

When I was first starting to teach boat building classes and was looking for ways to save time I did something kind of crazy. I brought all my tools up into the loft of my barn and then taught three successive kayak building classes, with instructions to my students to get whatever tools they...

One last post from the Paddlesports Design class

January 2020September 2022Leave a comment

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...

More photos from the Paddlesports Design class

January 2020September 2022Leave a comment

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...

Check out the boats built by JMU’s Paddlesports Design class

January 2020September 2022Leave a comment

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...

What we’ve been up to the last 7 months

November 2019September 2022Leave a comment

Friends of Cape Falcon, we invite you to visit our other Instagram @actuallytiny to check out the near-completion of the tiny house we’ve been building for last 7 months. This cute little cabin incorporates advanced framing and insulation details, passive solar design, a hybrid woodfired/solar thermal hot water system, a fold down porch roof...