Another Aussie Laker

[dawallace45]

Well I finally got around to starting my Laker 14 last week , I've had the plans for some time but due to other projects lacked , time and space to start ,

Finished up some other projects early last week and cleaned up the shed a bit so had the space to get into it , have needed a new lighter kayak for some time , back is pretty screwed up at these days and the heavier Mill Creek 16.5 is giving me problems ,

Actually the last two time I took it out I put my back out getting it off the rack on the trailer and had to get some one to give me a hand to put it back on and didn't even get to put it in the water ,

When the wife saw what I was building she decided that she wanted one too as she reckons I can't be trusted to behave my self if let out alone so she figured she'd better go with me , don't know how this is going to work out as my wife's idea of a long paddle is about a mile , I said this to her and she just said " deal with it , it's the doctors idea of what you should be paddling any way " , so it looks like I'm going to have a paddling partner

Luckily I followed my usual practice of making panel templates up out of MDF , getting them right then just tacking them on to the rough cut ply and running them round on the router bench so it took bugger all to do another set of panels

Matt , hope you don't mind me doing another one for my wife off the one plan , if you do just send me a PM

One hull is filleted together and the panels for the other hull are ready to stitch tomorrow , also working on a cabinet to go on the end veranda to take brooms , mops and buckets and such so when I have to wait for epoxy to harden I can go onto some thing else , I plan to make up the two hulls and then set them aside and make up the decks

One thing I'm not sure of is if I'm going to go with bulk heads or just deck supports , if I go with deck supports then I'm going to need some sort of floatation bag / gear bag , any one know how to make them ?

David

 

[hairymick]

G'day Dave,

Goodonyamaaaaate ,

great choice of boat. Hell, you don't muck around do you? LOL.

Mate, what has worked really well for Robin and I in our Laker 13s is a bulkhead in the back with a hatch and a deck support in the front.

I think Joel from Blackdog Kayaks posted a thread here somewhere about making dry bags but I can't find it just now.

You can also get them cheap off ebay. reminds me, I need to get a smallish one for my camera.

 

[dawallace45]

Thanks Mick

Making up templates out of 9mm MDF makes things easier , I just make up one of each panel then lay the templates on the sheets of ply and mark them out with out having to do all that time consuming laying out for the rest of the panels , then I just rough cut the panels and tack them together with the template and cut them to size on the router table , easy and all the panels exactly the same , makes it much faster , the only thing that slows things down is I keep running out of bench space , got some more old ply from a 4' x 8' bench that is way too low , may get some more studs in the near future and make up another 16' x 2' bench , they are very handy and I've got room for them

Yeah I've tried to find the post about dry bags but no joy either .

Hatches , I've seen the ones you made and they seem to work well for you but I've always been wary of hatches , last time I paddled a kayak with a hatch was about 30 years ago and a wave rolled me over and ripped the front hatch cover off and the compartment filled with water , had to drag the bitch over 100 metres back to shore with the back end bobbing up and down in the water like a fishing pencil float , maybe floatation bags will be the way for me to go , I like the idea of being able to get a hose in and get the redbacks out , and besides that if I can slip my rifle just in behind me it will be handy for if I take it hunting up north

David

 

[JEM]

I always thought a guy could split a pool noodle the long way and bungee it in under the deck sheer line. The way if she fills up, she's still floating upright. Don't need much additional flotation to make a wooden boat float.

 

[dawallace45]

Matt

Strangely enough I bought 4 pool noodles for just that use about a month ago but I was figuring to glue them on with Sikaflex

David

 

[oldsparkey]

Making Flotation Bags ... the 17th posting from the bottom of the Kayak section not this Another Aussie Laker post. ( Page #1 of the Kayak Section ).

Or ... http://blackdogkayaks.com/forum/YaBB.pl ... 49782415/0
On nobucks's forum.

Chuck.

 

[dawallace45]

Thanks Chuck , it never occurred to me to just check down the list , I just used the search ,

Well I didn't get any thing done on the Lakers yesterday and only a little over 2 hours the day before but I did manage to get it stitched up and the tacking fillets on the outside run early in the morning then run the inside fillets late in the afternoon , got some sanding to do today but not a whole heap , have to work on the new cabinet I'm making so the Laker will take a back seat for a while

I told my cat Boris that when the laker is finished I'd take him for a paddle , as you can see he's beside him self with excitement

David

 

[gbinga]

Looking good!

 

[dawallace45]

gbinga thanks , it's coming on , will need to get around to ordering some foot braces and fibreglass some time this week , at the moment I'm shuffling stuff around to make room to make up some face frames and doors for a cabinet , will need to stack the kayaks aside and maybe get back to them next week

David

 

[bearridge]

Friend David,

Boris looks....very catlike. [grin] I see ya feel like me. A fella jest caint ever have too much good rope. Now I got a question....bout that wide mesh heavy wire screen. It dont cover the whole porch area. How come? Hmmm....wonder how ya'll say "porch" in Australian? [chuckle]

regards
bearridge

The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.  P. J. O'Rourke

 

[dawallace45]

Bear

Yeah , Boris is very cat like , LOL , he only sleeps 22 hours a day , for a cat I think this makes him hyperactive , the other 2 hours he eats , hunts and fights , he's a fair lump of a cat and eats twice as much as the dog and every few nights he goes off and brings back a rabbit or hare , don't know how he does it but he eats the whole bloody thing except for the bowel and the fluffy tail ,

I like cats , they don't hang on you like a dog does , don't get me wrong I like dogs too but dogs tend to be more needy than cats , although Boris is a bit more possessive than a lot of cats , neither Boris or the dog Mischief tend to let me out of their sight for too long , if I'm at the computer Boris is laying on the desk and Mischief is at my feet , if I'm down the shed working both are laying close by watching , although if I go for a walk around the yard Mischief just watches from the veranda , she is 10 years old and reckons that exercise sucks , Boris likes to go for walks with me , strange for a cat

Actually the stuff hanging in the background are my spare extension leads , that is actually a door they are hanging on the back end of the shed is meshed in as security for some of my messier tools like wood lathe , thicknesser , saw bench and router table , I also have my Metalcraft bender setup there , the mesh allows me to just shovel up the mess and then blow the rest out into the yard with a leaf blower , but of a night the whole area where the tools are is locked up for security , I do most of my work out on the covered work area [ 14' x 40 ' ] as it's much cooler and the breeze carries away most of the dust from sanding and such ,

I do agree you can't have too much rope , but I keep mine out of the sun as it tends to destroy it

We do use the word porch but the word veranda is more common

Was going to order foot braces from Duckworks but the postage is just too much and money is a bit tight at the moment so I'm going to have to come up with a idea for making my own , any one got any suggestions , they need to be adjustable as one kayak will be for my wife but friends will probably borrow it now and then and most of them will be far longer in the leg than my wife

David

 

[hairymick]

I reckon the foot braces are doable but even with our weak Aussie dollar and the cost of shipping, they are more trouble to make than they are worth - particularly adjustable ones. I would still recommend the Duckworks jobbies.

 

[dawallace45]

Mick

2 sets of foot braces landed here are about $165 AUD , I just can't justify that at the moment given that Shirley may not have a job in a few weeks

David

 

[oldsparkey]

I have foot braces in the sea kayak I made from Pygmy boats ( The Coho) .... I NEVER USE THEM. They are just a lot of extra cost and excess baggage as far as I am concerned but they came with the kit , so I installed them.
They are about as useless as a wood block on the sides of the hull that like to get in the way. The nice thing is these are adjustable so they can be moved all the way forward and out of the way.

Never have and never will have them in any other boat I make. As you might of gathered ... I don't care for then. :twisted:
Just me , I guess , but I sure don't need or want them. I know I will get some trouble over saying that but they are a pain for me and something I don't want to put up with.
Just a crutch or assistance to a paddler that requires it if that is what they are use to. All the more to them , just not something for me or something I want in my boats.

Chuck.

 

[keith]

jdupre made some on his poste in pirogues. it was something like a board with sandpaper on the ends for friction and you just jamed it in. it worked great and cost $2 or nothing. later keith

 

[dawallace45]

Chuck

I don't have them in any of the kayaks I've made already but there have been times they would have been useful , in most of my boats there is a support handy for me to brace my feet against but these won't be available in the Laker , suppose I'll wait until the last moment before I put the deck on and decide if I'm going to make some up or not , did see some home made ones years back where there was just a piece slotted 2" x 3" either side of the hull and a piece of ply just slipped in to make the foot brace , seemed to do the job well enough

Keith

I'll have a look later on and see what I can find on jdupre's post , thanks

David

 

[stickbow]

I find footbraces useful when I need (or just want) to roll the boat - lets me brace my foot to push up with my knees and keep myself more solidly in a boat that isn't snug like my whitewater boat. Some folks avoid rolling at all costs, so wouldn't see a use there. In rough water, (like waves in a sea kayak, or in sho' nuf white water), footbraces and other methods of hooking into the boat are important.

If these aren't concerns, I push them out of the way and move my legs around to keep things from getting sore and numb.

The 'yak's gonna be purty and your wife's gonna 'preciate you for it. I agree with (I think it was) Mick: put a bulkhead and hatch behind your seat, use float bags up front.

I've made float bags and dry bags from Tom Yost's instructions, but think those on Black Dog's site are a little clearer (and give more ideas). I saw the screw valves for sale on some site (edit--duh, they tell you NRS sells them)

You can make dry bags the same way, just add velcro and a roll up flap on one end. If you catch a lot of extra air in the bag, it'll help you as a "float" bag too.

Heck, you can make all kinda stuff this way -- water bladders, rain suits, ponchos, body bags...

Denver fabrics sells a heat-sealable nylon fabric too. it's pricier than the glue/vinyl, but it's a lot lighter if you were making dry bags for ultralight backpacking.

 

[john the pom]

Hey Dave
Like you I couldn't come to terms with them $ being spent on footbraces so I cheated
Cut two pieces of 12mm ply at about 5 x 2" chamfered the edges a bit and glued with w/flour them in the approximate place I'd worked out I'd need footbraces at. (Another edit for clarification on the side panels just before the front bulkhead... Hmm now this has me thinking.If you're over 6' tall you're gonna be close to that bulkhead with where your feet are, check with Mick I think he'd be your height. I'm a shortarse but if I'd been much taller my feet would be about resting on that bulkhead...
Galvanised angle bkts, I had a load of these in the shed about 4" each leg and think they"re just over 1/8" so say 4mm thick, they are the ones with creases pressed into the corner which makes them about 5 times stronger than the plain L shaped ones. Used SS screws but ground the ends off so they wouldn't touch the INSIDE of the hull. I only moved them once after finding out what was comfortable for me. Cut a rubber handle grip lengthwise and secured this to the bkt with cable ties( The bkt manufacturere must have known I was gonna do this 'cos they put holes in the sides I wasn't gonna put screws into ) . Works a treat for me and I love the cost, bugger all really 'cos all made out of bits I had "lying around".
If you can find SS bkts use them of course, I always look out for them but never seem to see any. I keep an eye on mine and after a year they still don't have a spot of corrosion on them. When/If they do I'll put some more on.
Cheap as.
Regards John.
P.s I should add that you probly get about 3"-4" room to manouvre with this set up but you can also reverse the bkt and almost double that.

 

[hairymick]

Dave,

On the Laker 13, the front bulkhead/ temp frame is very close to being in the correct position for me to use as a foot brace.

I am 6' tall. You are at a guess, 2" taller than me and I don't know where the temp frame goes in the 14' version.

I like the foot braces for the same reasons as Jackbow but also, they help me with lower back pain and when I want to sprint. I can get MUCH more power in each stroke. I don't roll much anymore and rarely wear a spray deck anyway. I much prefer to keep the water under the boat. (keeps my smokes dry and doesn't shake up the beer. )

I am guessing you plan to paddle mainly calm, sheltered water so the bracing and support advantages are probably not as important to you. On my next build, I might just have a play with something in wood but by the time I get to that, your boats will be well and truly done.

 

[dawallace45]

Stickbow

I can't roll a kayak and don't want to , I figure the point of a boat is to stay dry , I'm like Mick in that respect , I don't want to get water in my beer and it tends to cause havoc in the tackle box , definitely think I'm just going to go with framing each end , I've always put bulkheads in all my past boats but I really want to be able to use the rear space for gear like a rifle or maybe a take down bow and some arrows so the float bags and dry bags is the way I'll go , at the moment buying from the USA is pretty much out , our dollar is very low and it's just not worth while

John / Mick

Yeah saw that the front bulkhead was pretty much close enough to use as a foot brace but I'm not going with bulkheads this time , every other kayak has had bulkheads with screw in hatches and I've just never used them because it's just too awkward to get stuff in and out , if it weren't for the fact that I do find foot braces useful every now and then I'd just do with out although my wife does like them and in her kayak it's possible that other people may borrow it from time to time so I just can't set them to her height [ 5'3" ]

Yep ,calm, sheltered water , that for me , don't need to sprint any more , will be using a Greenland style paddle as well because it's not as savage on my damaged shoulder

Actually have a idea in mind for the foot braces , will let you know if it works out

David