Cheri and I are going to have visitors for the Summer,(well part of the Summer) three very active and adventurous little boys. One of the responsibilities we feel we have to fulfil as grandparents, is to get these three littluns doing things they would not normally do. Take them out of their usual rhythm so to speak. We have taken them hiking, camping, fishing, rock-climbing, berry picking, sledding and snow-boarding, all sorts of stuff, so that when they get older they will have great memories to look back on.
One of the things we have planned for them this Summer is kayaking. So with that in mind, our front porch became "Paul-Paul's Boatyard". Well if you were going to make three plywood kayaks wouldn't you do it on the front porch so that all the neighbours could see you when they drove by.
I know you, dear reader, are going to be wondering how on earth a welder with minimal woodworking skills is going to manage to make three kayaks that will be good enough to risk putting boys in and sending them off to the far reaches of the seas. I plan on using a method that all the experts say,"any idiot can master". The method is called "Stitch and Glue" and works exactly as it sounds, you sew some pieces of wood together in the shape of a boat, then add fibreglass tape and glue and resins to make it waterproof. Simple no? Actually, yes!
I did not go to the trouble of purchasing plans/blueprints etc because, as many of you know, I am a cheap bugger. Anyway, who doesn't know what a kayak looks like? The other reason for not buying plans was that I had my own ideas of what these particular kayaks had to be, quick to build,simple to paddle, and most importantly, stable. Did I also mention cheap?
The material cost for three eight foot long kiddie kayaks was about $89. :
5 Pieces of 1/4 inch cheap plywood @ $10 each.
2 Rolls of fibreglass drywall tape @ $5 each.
1 Can of "El Cheapo" outdoor white paint @ $14
1 Epoxy resin sealing kit @ $15
Anything other than the above listed materials that was used, you may consider to have been scavenged from places I work, or they were laying about the house and I appropriated them for my own ends.
Unfortunately I did not take any pictures of the earliest part of kayak production( all the drawing, and sawing, and piecing together), so you will have to take my word for it that everything went well. It really is easier to make three kayaks than one, every time you make a piece just make three of them!
Two of my nautical works of art. Lovely lines don't you think?
Taping and glue-ing. The dark smears you can see are the result of the resin drying on the wood.
Paul-Paul's Boatworks.
So not really a canoe, not really a kayak. A Canyak maybe, or a Kaynoe? You decide. By the time I reached the, "wow these really look like boats " stage, the three amigos had arrived for their summer at Nana's . After I had done a little more sanding and prep work, we were ready to paint our boats. The unspoken rule was, "If you want to paddle it, you've got to paint it", so the boys took turns at painting kayaks. Each little guy picked out his own boat and set to painting it with a helping hand from Paul-Paul. I do not know what sort of thinking process went into choosing each boat, cos , as far as I could tell, they were all identical.
Here's Christian Giovanni Hall putting a coat of barnacle resistant paint on his boat.
Sometimes it is hard to tell if he really is into this, or if he would rather be inside watching cartoons.
That section of the hull is definitely gonna be barnacle free!
I think he is really concentrating here, don't you?Here are a few pics of our next pirate, Cade, ARRRRRRR! Cade needs absolutely no convincing to join in and build something, he even stepped up and helped me in the sanding process. He really seems to enjoy doing stuff with his hands and seeing an end product.
Judicious application of paint by Cade. Paul-Paul just slops it on. The thicker the better!
The Roger Federer two-handed method.
Almost missed a spot.
Having fun painting the "pointy end".
A beautiful afternoon to paint a boat.Now for our third and most fierce pirate.....The Dread Pirate Austin. Austin, as you will see, is much more thoughtful about how to apply paint. No matter how much I urge him to slop it all over the place, he carefully spreads it out in just the right amounts in just the right places.
"Paul-Paul, you're not doing it right".
"Paul-Paul, you're not doing it right".
Now there is a young man concentrating on what he is doing. Ten out of ten for good work.
"Paul-Paul, you are painting my side of the boat, move over.....".
I think he is singing "Row row row your boat, gently down the stream......", you know the rest.The last two pictures here, show the finishing touches being added to all three boats. Speed stripes are being added for effect, and to break up the mass of white paint that is the sides of these vessels. Notice how we went from "boat shaped bits of wood, glued together, to boats, and now VESSELS". Aren't we a bit full of ourselves?
Well yes, I am a bit proud actually. I built three boats in about twenty hours, using simple tools, and spending less than one hundred dollars!
Pin striping, with impatient boys looking on.
No, I am not concentrating, I have to lean forward like that so I can see what I am doing.I just noticed, three identical boats on three identical chairs, what a laugh. The boys did want their boats to be a little different from each other, so I grudgingly let them pick through my trash/treasure boxes for stuff to decorate them with.
Cade picked a Lincoln Continental emblem for the prow of his boat, and a dinosaur of some kind for right in front of the seating area/cockpit.
Christian chose a stegosaurus for the cockpit area, and an old Saint Christopher medal that was once on the dashboard of an old sports car, for the pointy end of his boat.
Austin managed to snag a toy Space Shuttle before the other boys saw it. That will go on the front of his boat.He chose a golden frog ornament for the cockpit area of his boat.
As we were going to be launching on July the 4th, I made sure that the stern deck of each boat had an American flag glued in place.
Stay tuned for the next thrilling instalment; Will the boys,
Be able to paddle,
Be swept over the giant waterfall,
Drown as their flimsy craft break into pieces,
Or eat too many hot dogs and Nana won't let them in the water.
All the best,...Paul-Paul.
Drown as their flimsy craft break into pieces,
Or eat too many hot dogs and Nana won't let them in the water.
All the best,...Paul-Paul.
