Rebecca - it happened at last. JimJamed Birthday Girl at 11:45 on 19th November - have you no shame?
Candyfloss is the build name of a CLC Wood Duck 12 Kayak. She is being built in Robbins Elite Ply, since she is to sport a painted finish (bright pink is the proposal!) use of the Super Elite, my preferred ply would be a waste and result in a heavier boat. Plans were purchased from Fyne Boat Kits who have been ever ready with advice for the build. They appear to work on a very sound assumption – that the builder is a veritable tyro and advise accordingly. Having investigated alternative supplies locally I concluded that I could do no better than go back to Fyne for the Resin and Glass cloth, their prices are certainly competative. The plans for this one come in the form of full size drawings of the panels – begs the question how far this build is away from the kit of parts. I venture to suggest not much – all the drafting is done for you. As long as you can follow a line with a jigsaw then I don’t see how you can go wrong. For me it takes a lot of the fun out of it – not that S&T construction is much fun anyway (in my humble opinion).
30th September 2008
Dodged the ‘blustery showers’ and got all the boats out of the little green shed, unwrapped the ply and sorted out the two best sheets of 4mm, and found the decking sheet of 3mm.
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scarf planing set up
Set up the ‘Scotch Mist’ strongback and screwed a plank of 4’ x5″ x ½” timber across the end to cut the scarf joint on. Worked at it for about half an hour but the planes are a little dull after their time in the south. Set the waterstones to soaking overnight and will have a sharpening session in the morning.
Scarf joint glued and clamped with screwed down batten
The screw holes will get filled during the build process. Doesn’t matter, as the paint job will cover all. Put the fan heater on in the shed for the first time this autumn, getting colder by the day and didn’t get above 9ºC all day. Early for it to get this cold all day – snow forecast for the tops on Friday.
2nd October 2008
Getting a bit pushed for space!
A friend visited from the east this morning so only 3½ hours of work today. First look at the full size drawings.
A very nice wood duck drawing on the GA just crying out to be rendered in gold, silver and copper leaf, might look good on the hatch.
The Wood Duck on the drawings
Got the panels marked out for bottom and side panels. Layout on drawings seems a little wasteful and I don’t like the idea of cutting out two panels at a time. Thinking about the transom, hatch and coaming coming out of sapele ply offcuts from my clinker canoes and bright finishing as accents to the paint job. Quite chilled by dark. Hope this spell of winter passes quickly.
3rd to 5th October 2008
Moved on to marking out the shear deck panels, puzzled by the layout diagram – couldn’t see how the drawings could be laid out to give that arrangement, then realised it was printed as mirror image so a simple flip of the drawing and mark through from the back worked fine.
6th October 2008
Sun shone all day – so abandoned the build and worked in the garden.
7th October 2008
Marked out the deck panels on the 3mm ply – very floppy stuff – hope it is going to be strong enough to support the paddlers weight boarding and exiting. As an afterthought checked the transom against the marked out deck, something not quite right – the deck line in the transom was an inch wider than the deck itself! Email to Fyne to see where I had gone wrong.
8th October 2008
Started cutting hull and deck panels – in effect creating the ‘kit’ of parts to build the thing. Minor cleaning up with the block plane brought everything to size, Beveled the panels according to instructions. Not sure about this as it is contrary to all previous experience with S&T.
9th October 2008
starting stitching, everything was going well, the bow took up its shape with a little persuasion but the stern which has to do the 90° twist in a much shorter distance proved a little more stubborn.
just a bit tighter
By twisting thje stitching a liitle at a time it looked as though the shape was going to come out fine. Then one twist of the wire too much, a big bang and the garboard plank snapped clean in two about four inches forward of the stern!
After the big bang
Repair was easy – simply scarf a new section of ply on to the rear couple of feet of the broken plank, and shape it up after the glue cured. Fortunately I had spare ply over because the temporary forms had all been cut from scrap exterior ply left over from the Folly hull.
10th October 2008
Trimmed up the repaired plank, drilled the stitching holes using the other side as a pattern and started stitching – this time following the instructions in the book of words, spraying the last couple of feet of the plank with water and adding a bit of steam from an old steam iron as well. With these changes the plank was much more flexible and went to shape easily. A small crack developed in the surviving plank about where the other broke, damage caused by my first attempt! Moral – read the book and do as instructed. I left the damp planks to dry overnight before going further just in case they split as they dried.
11th October 2008
Found everything fine so continued stitching the side panels to the garboards – beginning to look like a boat now. Stitched the deck assembly together, a fairly delicate operation. During this process really came to appreciate the beveled joints, – it gives a really tight clean joint line with minimal epoxy showing externally.
12th October 2008
Epoxy tacked the hull and deck joints, temporarily wired and taped the two together to ensure they were in register once the final joining happens. Left it all to set hard.
13th October 2008
Removed the copper stitching wire from the tacked hull, used the hot air gun to remove any blobs that would prevent a fair fillet being formed. Removed the temporary forms from the hull – it seems to hold its shape. Filleted and taped the hull joints and laid the glass sheathing over the cockpit area
14th October 2008
Up reasonably early to get another filler coat of epoxy on the hull interior. Cut all the various elements for the hatch. Used the sapele ply for the hatch itself and the lip of the support plate because of its cleaner working characteristics. Filleted and taped up the deck assembly.
15th October 2008
Fitted hatch spacer and got a couple of coats of epoxy on the underside of the deck, removed the temp forms with some trepidation – the gorgeous curve on the deck held firm. A brilliant bit of design.
16th October 2008
Sanded the interior of the hull, cockpit area, mainly to get rid of any snaggy ends of glass that could be unpleasant for the future paddler. Rolled a coat of epoxy over sanded area.
Detail of hatch and hatch support ring
Trimmed the hatch opening back to the spacer rings and sanded all smooth, fitted hatch support to spacers.
Cleaned off surplus foamed poly glue from hatch support after cured. Coated hatch support bits with epoxy.
17th October 2008
Deck and Hull stitched and epoxy tacked
Loose stitched deck to hull with spacer battens, applied thickened epoxy to edge of hull and eased the deck into place tightening stitches from centre out. All looks pretty good.
18th October 2008
Filleted and taped deck/hull seam one side,
19th October 2008
Filleted and taped deck/hull seam other side,
20th October 2008
Cleaned up the hull and deck, gently sanded over all. Sheathed Hull up to shearstrake
21st October 2008
Sheathed Deck and overlapped onto hull.
Deck sheathed with glass
Snow on the hills and temperature down to 5.4C. Epoxy slow going off now.
22nd October 2008,
Filling coat of epoxy to deck, sheathed hatch cover.
23rd October 2008
Made up coaming spacers and glued coaming in place, about the last significant construction item. Gluing up took place as the gale struck, shed surrounded by banshee wailing and major shaking sensations. Checked later and we had winds of 85mph at Ardmair, since we are a bit higher probably more for us. What an Autumn.
24th October 2008
Cleaned up coaming and started the big sand. The biggest reason to hate S&T! Epoxy still slightly green so sanding slow and tedious, lots of changes of paper. Wind in the eighties at Ardmair again
25th October 2008
Carried on sanding, turned the hull and got one side done. Slow progress not helped by the strong winds – 82mph at tea time.
26th October 2008
severe gale all day again, just too fraught to go in the shed
27th October 2008
Over to Inverness to get the paint, shock cord and webbing to finish the fitting out. No work on the boat, lots of snow on the high tops.
28th October 2008
Woke to snow on the ground and blizzard conditions. Fan heater running continuously in the shed got it up to 12°C by mid afternoon, wind sucking the heat out as fast as it went in. Cut seat support from scrap 4mm ply,
Base for the moulded foam seat before bending to shape
routed a v groove on the bend line for the thigh supports and glassed the inside.
glassing of seat base
Sanded the rest of the hull, concerned about collision damage with the river rocks decided on a reinforcing tape along the line of the keel. Faired it in with fairing mix once green. Final epoxy coat on the hatch surface. Winds easing – max of 60 recorded today
29th October 2008
Filleted under deck – bulkhead join. Glassed the underside of the seat support, fitted longitudinal timber to C/L to fix seat support to. Epoxy coated coaming. No wind and a bit of sun – makes all the difference. Max of 6°C but the shed holding 20°C with no difficulty. Blissful day. Got the boat out of the shed for first outdoor snaps.
Sun on her back for the first time
Ducks posterior
second undercoat on, high VOC so not very pleasant.
- not a lot else can be done till it is dry, good weather so shed left open all day to clear the fumes.
pretty in pink
just the deck rigging and installing the seat to do
14th November 2008
Finished at last, did the deck rigging and hatch dogs yesterday, fitted the seat base in place and stuck the HD Velcro to it. Put the moulded seat on the Velcro and fitted the back band. Naming has also been done in the last few days. I will update the saga of that later in the week. Might be some sun tomorrow so will be able to get a good general view of the finished boat. Expect to undergo sea trials mid week.
the seat base before installation.
Seat base installed
moulded foam seat attached
hatch, dogged, and deck rigging
Finished job from front
Looks great!
I’ve began building my first kayak and it’s a Wood Duck!
One question, what is the name of the seat that you installed? I haven’t reached that point yet, but your seat looks very comfee!
By: Danny on June 2, 2009
at 04:21
Hi Danny,
Good to hear of another Duckling on the way. They are lovely boats and perform as well as they look. The seat is indeed very comfee, a major requirement of the owner! Supplier was Fyne Boat Kits – linked in the suppliers section in the panels to the right. You will need to make a sub base for it though, the seat is designed for a less beamy kayak where the bottom and side panels would provide the support. Easy enough out of a bit of scrap ply using the moulding as a template. If you are not in the UK I think CLC do something very similar.
Good luck with the build
Chris
By: strathkanchris on June 2, 2009
at 09:23
Reinhold, Thank you for your interest, I was apparently the first to build from plans (the WD12 is primarily a kit boat) so I was the testbed as it were! I think the WD10 transom got onto the WD12 plans in error, Fyne were very apologetic and will rework the drawings in due course. I have PM’d you with more on my workaround. Good Luck with your build – they are a lovely design.
Chris
By: strathkanchris on January 3, 2009
at 16:47
I read your story on the building of this kayak with great interest. The reason: I just started to build a WOOD DUCK 12 acc. to plans by CLC.
On 7th Oct. you mentioned some differences in dimensions between deck and transom. I would be very interested in the reply and explanation of Fyne Boats to your request.
What was the reason ?
Many thanks for your reply in beforehand
Best regards
Reinhold Heller
By: Reinhold Heller on January 2, 2009
at 21:56
It’s the man with the very deep pockets you really ought to thank! I just enjoyed the building – his bank account’s what suffered
By: strathkanchris on November 19, 2008
at 22:39
I think mildly surprised was an understatement Chris!! Thank you for building my brilliant kayak – looking forward to the maiden voyage in her and many happy summer days ahead…. cheers Di
By: Di Rusling on November 19, 2008
at 20:20
Excellent. look forward to seeing the ongoing saga. Keep it up
Keep em waxed…….. Ned
By: Andy Boulter on October 26, 2008
at 12:22