With the boat now inside, I can get down to brass tacks, as they say!! I needed to decide on a cockpit size and shape. One of my main beefs with this boat before was the over sized cockpit. This time I've opted for a true keyhole shape. I scoured the Internet and found two separate templates that, when combined, gave me the exact shape I wanted. (One of the templates was from Bryan Hansel's
Sisiwkit LV and the other was from a kayak built by
John Coppens.) After piecing them together I saw that the resulting shape is almost identical to the NDKs. I downloaded the images of the coamings and using Photoshop I scaled them up to 100%. Then it was just a matter of gluing the template to the 1/2" MDF.
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| Hybrid template. |
The title of this post is "Designing and Building by the Seat of my Pants" by which I mean I have no set plans for this project. I am, for all intents and purposes, making everything up as I go along. I simply decided upon a general deck shape and starting drawing up forms based on that. Deck height was determined without even trying it to see if it will be OK. The three images below show some up the initial setup to determine the deck shape and such.
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| Coaming and deck height testing! |
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| Determining the fore deck shape. |
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| Testing how the strips will fit around the coaming template!! |
Once I had the forms cut and in place for the fore deck and the cockpit template in place, it was time to start putting on some strips. The stripping went pretty much without incident. Luckily everything lines up nicely and the transition from fore deck to aft deck went smoothly (something that I had a bit trouble with when I built the Black Pearl) I'm guessing that stripping the whole deck took no more than 4 hours in total.
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| Letting the strips run long. They will be trimmed later. |
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| Fitting the strips around the coaming. |
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| Fore deck completed. |
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| Aft deck waiting in the wings!! |
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| Showing the new curved sheer of the aft section. |
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| Looking aft. |
With the stripping finished, I left the deck for a day so that the glue could set up. The next step is trimming the long strips. I used a razor blade knife for the rough cut, followed up with a small block plane. With the deck trimmed, the nice lines of the boat have returned.
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| Deck trimmed, |
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| Looking fwd. |
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| Looking fwd. |
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| Looking aft. |
I must admit that I am quite pleased with the new shape of the boat. The resulting curve from dropping the sheer at midships really adds to the look. The fore deck is a combination of flats and curves on the cross section that will really show up once I start to sand and will be even more evident when painted. And the smaller cockpit is more fitting to the new look as well.
All in all, I'm a happy camper. Next step is sanding the interior of the deck and then glassing it!
Thanks for dropping by,
Sean
Looks great Sean.
ReplyDeleteThanks Lee. It's fun to be working on a project again. And it's just like building a new but but with the tedious part, i.e., the hull, already done!!!
ReplyDeleteCheers,
sean
Looking good. Is that one of my cockpit templates? If so, what's the other? It'd be easy enough to draw this one up and offer it as a free giveaway.
ReplyDeleteBryan:
ReplyDeleteOops. Looks like I've been caught!!! Yes, that is the template I found for your Sisikwit LV!! The other was from someone named John Coppens who, apparently, used Nick Schade's template as a base!!
I have made changes to my posting above to give credit where credit is due.
Cheers,
Sean
No worries. I made the template available so builders could use it, so I'm glad you found it useful. Thanks for the credit; I do appreciate it. Just curious, what did you like better about the other template?
ReplyDeleteHey Brain:
ReplyDeleteGenerally I'll note somewhere in my blog where I found an idea or tip. Yours was most helpful as it meant that I did not have to start from scratch nor try to trace an existing coaming.
I liked (and used) the overall shape of your template but there was something about the shape of the "ears" or "tabs" on the other one that caught my attention. Not sure why but there was no real reason. If you look closely, you'll see it's really just a slight change in the curvature from your plan.
Cheers,
Sean
I think I see the difference. It's hard to tell. I'll load it up later and see if it's something I want to add as another giveaway. I think I'm giving away three different shapes at this point. I've been blogging too long if I can't remember exactly how many, eh?
ReplyDeleteThe rebuild is looking good.