Joint adVenture (Pygmy Coho) - Part 1.

Matt Moses and I have been steadily building a wooden kayak over the last few months.

We purchased the kayak, a pygmy coho on Craigslist from a former NOLs instructor living in the headlands.

It's been a slow process, but I've been enjoying every step.

Now that it actually looks like a beautiful boat, I'm more willing to share.

At first, I figured I'd document the whole build process... but I kept forgetting the camera, it's tedious... and there are a bunch of well documented blogs on building the same boat... cuz it rocks.

Here's one from the west coast paddler.
This one was customized for his dogs.
From Burket Knivelton...

But a really, really nice book to have is this one, which documents the building of the Pygmy Coho. Especially as a virgin boat builder, it helped out a LOT.

After reading, getting tables, proper equipment, etc... we got to use some epoxy to join the planks together (you can't ship a 17.5 ft piece of board, so it comes in 3 pieces).


All laid out.


And the cockpit...


Then we attached the pieces using a cradle form and some wire, after drilling... then we epoxied the planks together.


So you have to take care not to get the epoxy (mixed with wood flour) on the rest of the boat...


After sanding the epoxy down, we flipped her over (you can see the cradle forms), and made sure she was straight.




Laying the fiberglass down. it's very pliable, and these marks happen easily... don't worry about them, or mess with them too much.


Moses applying the coat of epoxy... a little nervous, but this was very straight forward.


It's amazing how the colors come out after the epoxying.


Voila




2 more coats of epoxy, then moving on to the cockpit...