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 was available define the shape of the deck. We had to find the shape of the deck and then come up with a system to reproduce the peaked deck beams, which was actually somewhat challenging. Of the two original kayaks, the longer one was much more finely crafted. The original tenons were cut parallel to the plane of the deck as opposed to in line with the deck beam (and the grain). This struck me as odd because it makes a weaker joint and would require a high degree of skill to reproduce without modern tools.
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