North Alaskan Kayak Build, Day 7: Spent the entire day bending test ribs into the larger of the two kayaks. Like I said yesterday the smaller kayak couldn’t be simpler, The ribs are cut just a fist width wider than the gunwales at that rib location.
The longer kayak is more work. I’m not sure if this kayak was originally free bent or whether the builder used a system that I don’t understand but I decided to use my own knowledge of rib measuring systems to create a measuring stick that works pretty well for this kayak.
The next challenge was getting the shaping right. I started out by just using some ribs of even thickness to get an overall sense of the shape. After that I switched to thicker ribs that are thinned towards the ends, the same as in the original kayak.
Thinning like this produces a very different shape and it’s actually a little bit tricky because the rib wants to bend right where the thinning starts, so I had to figure that out also. I used a tablesaw and an angle grinder to make quick work of the thinning, finishing with my trusted 60 1/2 (STILL the best block plane) After about a zillion trials I felt like I had it mostly right so I decided to do half of the boat and look at the shape.
It doesn’t perfectly match the original kayak but it’s close enough that I feel confident to move forward and make the final adjustment on the “real” ribs.
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