Building a Wooden Kayak - Making the microBootlegger
Kayak 8 years ago 794,020 views
A video documenting the process of building a wooden kayak. Nick Schade makes a custom built microBootlegger, starting from raw lumber through completion. Nick Schade from Guillemot Kayaks http://WoodenKayaks.com specializes in designing and building bespoke small wooden boats. Drawing from years of experience using kayaks, canoes, row boats and small sailboats, Nick creates unique original design and constructs them using wood and high quality composite materials. Materials: Mahogany, Maple, Fiberglass, Carbon Fiber, Epoxy. Infusion Epoxy provided by Endurance Epoxy http://www.epoxi.com Light Awash Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
10. comment for Building a Wooden Kayak - Making the microBootlegger
If I were building purely for myself, making a boat for hard use, I would not take nearly as long. I could do it in about 150 hours. I think it is reasonable for a first time builder to need about 200 hours.
20. comment for Building a Wooden Kayak - Making the microBootlegger
I admire you, and do not imagine how much I would like to learn from you
30. comment for Building a Wooden Kayak - Making the microBootlegger
Why the 220 dislikes?
Not rhetorical, I actually, truly want to know the exact reasons 220 people had for giving this vid a thumbs down. If you were one of them, feel free to air your grievances here.
Educate me.
This kayak is made from mahogany, I also use western red cedar and some domestic hardwoods.
50. comment for Building a Wooden Kayak - Making the microBootlegger
very soothing
Just one question: what is the purpose of the strips of wood with the black pitch @16:00?
Your mastery of your craft has me completely in awe. Beautiful.
sin palabras,
100. comment for Building a Wooden Kayak - Making the microBootlegger
Does the boat float?
Frank
id put it above my fireplace (well above, so it wouldnt catch fire:)
I wondered how many man hours required for a kayak?
PS: If you need an apprentice I am ready to work Sir :D
Greetings from Norway!
The film is also beautiful, kind of like an art film, hope to see more this kind of videos.
LEGGER = LAYER
BOATLAYER (Y)
i would have liked to see a west greenland style boat because they suit my eye but the workmanship is superb
Wow....interesting.
Thank you both for the reply.
Thank you for making that video.
My background is in engineering and tend to be fairly pragmatic about things. If it works, its good. What its called isn't so important.
That said, I don't feel any reason to pull back from calling the kayak a "wooden" boat. The wood is sufficiently integral to its functioning as a kayak, that I am comfortable calling it a wooden kayak. Without the wood, this would a floppy bag, not be a kayak. While it may not be what you expected when you started watching the video, maybe this will help expand your understand of what is possible with wood.
I came to this video thinking that I was going to see something else. I honestly thought that the entire kayak would be made from wood. perhaps several laminated layers of wood that was then finished with Teak oil and then oil based polyurethane.
I am a wood worker myself, and I understand the concept of composites as well due to the fact that I am a federally certified Airframe and Powerplant Technician with extensive schooling in composites.
the finished product is beautiful, and I'm happy that you took the time to create this video so that assholes like myself can leave stupid comments on it.
The wood is 1/8" [3mm] thick, only a small portion is removed, there is one layer of 6-ounce carbon fiber plus 1 layer of 2-ounce fiberglass cloth on the interior, the exterior is 1 layer 4-ounce glass plus 1 layer 2 ounce glass. The total thickness of all the fabric and epoxy combined is probably less than .04" or less than 1mm.
The total weight of the wood for the kayak itself is about 18 lbs [8kg] and for the carbon fiber, and glass is about 12 lbs [5.5kg], added to this is about 5 lbs [2.3kg]. Thus the bare hull, before seats etc, is about 35lbs [16kg].
About half the weight of the kayak before adding the seats is wood the other half is fabric and epoxy.
Structurally, all the components work together to provide the strength and stiffness to the boat. The wood alone would be fragile and not seaworthy, the fabric and epoxy alone would be very flexible and not seaworthy. With all the components together, the structure is durable and stiff.
To achieve the same stiffness using modern materials alone would require substantially more fabric and the weight would be greater than the combination with wood. To achieve the same strength with wood alone would require much more wood and would be substantially heavier and if you listened closely you could hear it starting to rot the moment you put it in the water.
So there is no climate change, the earth is flat and you most probably think Drump is a good president too and you voted for him. Must be an interesting living in an alternate planet you live on
this is not a wooden canoe. The Man expertly joined some wood together, then thinned it to about 1mm, then entombed it in layers of fiberglass that add up to several times the thickness of the wooden structure inside. essentially he used used the wood for artistic purposes, and not structural purposes. the wood makes up roughly 10% of the total structure of this canoe, so it is nothing more than a fiberglass boat, with a wood grain pattern inside.
I'm not saying that the canoe isn't a good canoe. I'm sure that it is top of the line, and will Outlast anything that I will even make. but that doesn't make my statement invalid.
You said 'the 3/16" thick wooden strips were whisper thin, really all they were was a design. they served no function other than providing a form on which the composite layers could be set.' I agree with you on that. The fact that the outer layer of glass fibre was put in place first, before any of the formers were removed, shows that the wooden shell has no implicit integrity. And only after the outer FG shell has cured, is there enough rigidity to pull a vacuum as the inner epoxy/CF lining is applied.
I think you hit the nail on the head, 'just a visual design inside of a composite boat.'
So after all that work, and the attached price tag...
it's the same as if I made an acoustic guitar out of carbon fiber, yet i had wooden bracing inside, and then I insisted on calling it a "wooden" guitar... it's not.
after he shaped the wood, and scraped it, then sanded it, the 3/16" thick wooden strips were whisper thin, really all they were was a design. they served no function other than providing a form on which the composite layers could be set. and once the boat was finished, the wood was essentially just a visual design inside of a composite boat.
Plain wizardry! \m/
Mega-kudos!!!
I would love to see this little beauty in action.
Til he painted it blue.
Keep up the great work
Parabéns!
EricPermanArquiteto
Music blows
but this is more about art and you are a true artist. I would like to make one of these but just a little bit out of my league.
But thanks only have one complain about the video it would only to say it would of been nice to see it in the water
Needless to say I would never have the patients , but I love to canoe and have 5 of them. Cheers to you !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What was the soundtrack?
It is unfortunate that the US does not have the kayaking club culture that exists in other countries. There used to be fairly active whitewater kayaking clubs, but those faded as inexpensive kayaks became more easily available.
I was maybe twelve or thirteen, and was fascinated by these boats. They have weighted half as much as any other boat we had, and were the most beautiful boats I've seen.
Flat water kayak racing was the best sport I was ever involved in, unfortunately almost unknown in Florida, where I live now. I often lament that there are no kayak racing clubs down here. I would have paid serious money to be in one of these clubs again.
There are very few boats that are purely wood. At the very least the wood was covered with some protective material such as pine tar, paint, or even sheets of copper. They were held together and sealed with a variety of materials, metal screws, cotton caulk, red lead bedding compound, etc.
We now have access to pretty extraordinary materials that are wonderful for boat building. I have sealed and reinforced the wood with modern fabrics and high quality adhesives. Most of the mass of the boat is wood. I have replaced the sinew, skin and fat with carbon fiber, glass and epoxy, but what makes it work is the wood. Without the wood, it would be heavier and not as strong.
These kayaks can be used hard, and will hold up to a lot of abuse. My customers may not use them as much as I would like, but I build them for use.
Very sound construction methods. His boats still look like works of art, they HAVE real wood, which is probably at least 50% of the boat mass, but this wood is so well protected from water and sharp rocks, that if used carefully, should last for generations.
I'm saying again. I dont know anything about kayaking, making kayaks, water-wood relation. I cant even swim. It may be a standard using composite material in kayak making job. But as an ordinary, not educated, non-intelligent, not important youtube watcher, title could be better if something like "Hand made wooden carbon-glass composite kayak" Again, Im not saying its a bad work. I respect any kind of hand made stuff. That's why i watched this video. I dont know why you take too serious my comment. I was not disrespectful to the maker or his work. I just said i lost my interest after epoxy and carbon-glass fiber part. Whats wrong with it still dont know... Seriously i didnt feel anything insulting.
If I may ask, what brand of electric scissor is that. I have thought of getting a rotary knife for heavier products like mated roving, but that is something I hadn't seen.
WOW..
It is such a pity that all that workmanship is hidden between layers of epoxy and fibres which were laid with such gentleness and all such a meticulous manner including the vacuum which ensures lightness with strength.
I need not go further, any boat that is supervised or made by these human movements, shown by this man and seen in this video , will definitely be a work of engineering art, to be treasured in one's life. This is what I admired most as the boat itself is circumstantial, and the product could be anything as it will contain the same quality of excellence. Congratulations, Sir, I raise my hat to you.
Congrats on a stupendous project!
Gene Jensen the great canoe designer, could turn out a canoe that would win races and go on to be pulled for molds and sold by one of the major canoe companies, in 4 days. That is hand drawing the plans for a new model, lofting full size and making, outfitting and launching and paddling the boat. So yeah these are pretty boats, but there is a whole world of making boats for real uses efficiently up to boats 60 of 100 feet long, using strips and epoxy and that seems little observed in the rush to create small often badly designed boats (not here) that look like a coffee table. And people seem to feel pushed to ever more expensive, heavy, and time consuming to build designs, for what are boats. They need to be well designed, fair, able to hold their shape, light, and durable.
So am I am watching the video because I love this boat, and all, but as a builder just throwing out the fact that great boats can be made relatively simply with this system right up to the size of major yachts.
Really appreciate the reply, Nick. I'll definitely check it out!
Personnaly i think it looks great. As mentionned, the contrast between the wood and the carbon fiber looks good. I always liked the classic look mixed with modern materials and tech.
Reminds me of these boats ;-)
http://www.yourclassicboat.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Chris-Craft-BarrelBack-by-Fish-Bros.jpg
As a true composite material, the combination of the fiberglass, wood and carbon fiber creates a structure that is better than the sum of its parts. It is lightweight and strong.
Terry
You are a true craftsman, and I applaud you...
I just knew we would it would come gliding across the screen in the water scene that kept repeating over and over through the seasons.
Some objects no matter their intended purpose are also works of art
Love the video editing and background music. Love how the sounds of work sometimes come through for effect. A very skillful video edit to highlight the awesome construction process. Thanks Nick. Wish I could afford one of your wonderful boats.
Thanks for posting.
I have been following your book for the Great Auk kayak and have loved the process so far.
However, I am struggling with the fibreglassing stage. I have been doing some tests and cannot seem to get the fibreglass to become completely transparent (it seems to be "patchy"), even though it is saturated (in my opinion anyway). I have been putting off full fibreglassing the hull for weeks now for fear it will ruin my hard work.
What is the best bit of advice you can give to keep this from happening.
I am hoping to build another one at some stage and learn from my errors!
Thanks!
It's not an item I'd use, it's art in the shape of a kayak, and I'm much more of a "I'll just bash this around, so I should have indestructible plastic instead" kind of owner.