I’m interested in building a skin on frame kayak. Any recomendations for kits and or books?
Can this be done in a living room?
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Living room? Yes, been there done that. Actually, in my only room - as I was in an efficiency during build. Helps to live alone and have few guests!!! (a big part of why I haven’t built another yet).
Kits? I’d recommend you just get a couple books and follow the process(es). More than one book gives you more options along the way. A kit or plans are not needed, and actually limit your options.
An example of what can be done by a novice builder in a small space with hand tools books and online info, :
http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/550036085nCAhKP
See resource list here:
http://www.qajaqusa.org/Equipment/kayaks.html
You should post to the QajaqUSA forums too, and their searching the archived posts will get you more info than you’ll ever need on SOF construction.
If you really want a kit, try Lordo at Monkcraft. He recently announced a kit option. Brian at Cape Falcon was also going to offer a kit a while back, but I don’t know if he’s still working on it or not.
http://www.monkcraftkayak.com/index.htm
http://www.capefalconkayak.com/ (lots of good info here)
Wow. That’s a lot of great info. Thank
That’s a sweet looking boat!
You can check out Black Dog Kayaks
There are a few different kits at this site.
http://www.blackdogkayaks.com/
rather than a kit
consider taking a class. in addition to the two builders that greyak mentioned, mark rogers of superior kayaks in michigan and turner wilson of kayakways in ct offer classes. costs a bit more, but they will provide materials, instruction and, most importantly, the subtle things that differentiate an expert kayak builder from a beginner. if you want a kit, i believe that bob kelim in washington state also does kits for a reasonable price. remember when you start to think about a sof, you’ve got a zillion choices among replicas, optimized designs (rough water, dedicated rolling, long distance camping), and materials. make sure that you work with someone who can help you frame exactly what you want and set the design up to match your body configuration.
Looks interesting
Have you built one?
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I second the yostwerks.com suggestion. He has several different ways of building kayaks and offers options for building any of his kayaks as folders. He has many pages of instructions and offsets for his various kayaks, and he doesn’t charge for his plans/instructions/advice.
Also, check out:
http://www.kayakforum.com/cgi-bin/Building/index.cgi
It’s not only for strip-building, SOF’s are discussed quite often.
Good luck,
Pedro Almeida