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aluminum kayak

Gary Jacek said:
Three degrees and foggy on our Wednesday paddle last week. That hull would have been mighty cold.
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"Well, it may be cold, but at least it's also noisy!"

(From someone who paddled those aluminum canoes made from WWII surplus material as a kid...)
 
Looking at the construction, why strips for the deck and not one curved section? That's how I do it with plywood so there is only one curve and easy to do. Two pieces, a fore and an aft one so only welds along the edges and two short ones about mid cockpit. He has more lengths of weld in the deck than anywhere else in the kayak.
 
JohnAbercrombie said:
You forgot to add "sticky" to your list. Those Grummans didn't like to slide over rocks either. :)
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True dat. I can recall a really scary moment where the centre of our canoe grabbed onto a sub-surface rock, and the boat pivoted broadside on to the current. The current began to tilt the boat downstream. With the downstream gunnel just an inch from going under, the boat reluctantly let go of the rock.
 
Well, what a hoot – he made it happen! Fairly thick sheeting at .040” [1mm] and yet only comes in at 39 lbs for a 12-0 [3.90m] x 32” [711mm] kayak. [An okoume kayak would probably be a bit lighter but its all in the same neighbourhood]

side.jpg


The buzzing welding sound would have driven me crazy but you have to give credit for the amazing work of having to reclamp for every spot weld because of expansion – wow. Interesting clamping methods of using magnets and outside tiny forms [bent pcs] to help panel alignment while welding.

I think cross bending of deck panels might have been difficult using the techniques that he used elsewhere where he could concentrate on one spotweld at a time and move to the next, but he did stitch to frames so maybe could have used that approach. Next time I guess

I kinda like the idea as I’ve often thought that it would be a joke if I built one of my ww s&g out of acrylic pseudo diamond plate glassed both sides and this guy did almost the same thing for real.

Free plans from yakayak.net - fortunately chose this one amongst some oddities:
the 'shorty':
shorty.jpg


Only a coaming upstand so I think it might be problem with slicing you thru the waves . . . .with emphasis on the “slicing you”.
quite the back support too.
coaming-upstand-only.jpg


Anyway, gotta love it, Brennen Kunka rules!
 
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