build

After a few trials and errors I finally sewed the skin on my sof kayak. It only took two years of the kayak hanging under our deck in order for me to start the process.

Last weekend the family and I launched the Freedom for the first time. It wasn’t quite “finished” in that I hadn’t varnished it yet, but I wanted to wait for the weather to cool a bit before spraying the urethane.

I started caning the stern seat last week, and so far it is going fine. I’m using the instructions from Gilpatrick’s book “Building A Strip Canoe,” and his descriptions and photos are very good.

I glued the inwales in a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t updated the blog because I’ve been going full-tilt on the canoe every chance I get, and I’ve been having some family fun camping in BC!

The past couple of days I finished fiberglassing the inside of the hull of the canoe. It was really difficult but I also learned a lot.

I finished scraping the inside of the hull this past weekend. I enjoyed this part of the build, as it didn’t involve any epoxy or electric power tools (ie ROS).

Sunday was sort of a big day for me, as I finally got to take the Freedom off of the strongback.