I was concerned that the oil in the lashings wasn’t going to dry in time for me to skin the next day, so as a nod to the original museum kayak, I decided to nail the ribs to the stringers and then cut away the lashings.
This may be the traditional attachment method for this kayak, but it’s not something I do very often for lots of reasons: Setting the stringer position is an exercise in deep paranoia because there’s no chance of adjusting them afterwards like you can do with lashings. It’s also time consuming and kind of annoying, usually requiring me to find every single bit extension I own and stack them together to be able to reach some of the ribs and then a steel drift pin to set the nails. It’s also much harder to replace any damaged framing members when it comes time for a re-skin.
On the positive side, no more oil soaked lashings, it looks cool, and gives me an opportunity to showcase an aspect of the museum original that I don’t usually reproduce. The nails here are bronze ring nails, although the originals would’ve probably been something simpler.
Added to the growing list of modifications that I will probably confess to in a few days here, I installed a short center forward deck stringer to mount a camera on deck. I felt pretty smug about my method for getting the bevel to perfectly match the height of the stringer on either side, although it did take longer than I’d care to admit figure that out.
I’m feeling pretty good about my prep for the skeg installation, although the whole thing requires a level of precision woodworking that I generally try to stay away from.
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