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Blog your build is a way to share your build, get connected with other Cape Falcon Kayak owners and builders, and save some money at the same time.

Bloggers post some photos and comments about their progress each time they work on their boats, along with an initial paddling impression and another one 6 months later. In exchange, they receive a partial refund on their plans or building course.

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For the record, I couldn’t pull it through eithe

For the record, I couldn’t pull it through either. I cut my deck straps for our new boats a 16th of an inch wider than normal. I regret that decision.
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#skinonframe #pull #nope

How have I never noticed this tree in my neighborh

How have I never noticed this tree in my neighborhood before?? Odd. Super cool when they grow back together like this, seemed worth sharing.

Liz doing the final finishing pull on her new F1.

Liz doing the final finishing pull on her new F1. This is a bit tricky to get right because you have to wait until the coating has set enough that you can smooth down imperfections without pulling off material, but it still has to be fluid enough that it will self level afterwards without leaving drag marks. The pressure and also the angle on the card just depends on how much the coating has set.
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Fortunately by this point on the kayak you’ve done this at least six times so you should have the timing dialed in perfectly!
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The coating here is the two-part polyurethane that’s sold by skinboats.org It goes on for coats wet on wet and the entire boat is done in one day. When applied correctly and paired with a quality skin usually lasts about 5 to 10 years on a kayak with no re-coating and no maintenance, which is about as close to a miracle as finishing gets in the boat world.
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It’s a bit tricky to work with but after 20 years of working with it I’ve developed coding instructions that even first time builders can use with good results. I’m constantly updating those instructions so right now we are re-shooting them for the kayak building course to incorporate new techniques for even better results.
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Color is our Burnt Sienna (specifically the stuff we sell, there’s a huge range of color in burnt sienna pigments). We mixed 4 teaspoons into 44 ounces of the part B of the two-part polyurethane, and this kayak has four coats on the deck and the hull.
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#skinonframekayak #kayakbuilding #finishwork

Nice light in the studio early yesterday morning.

Nice light in the studio early yesterday morning. Lots of work these few weeks, but not much time to post about it.
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#skinonframe #light

Lashing the keel to the ribs. We use a flat waxed

Lashing the keel to the ribs. We use a flat waxed polyester artificial sinew that is about 30% thicker than what is commonly sold. (this is available in our store).
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I like this twine because it’s super strong but doesn’t create bumps underneath the skin that are prone to wear like the twisted sinew.
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I use continuous lashings because they are quick and easy and I’ve never had a problem with them breaking. It takes about 30 minutes to stringer a kayak, about 3 times that for a canoe.
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#lashing #skinonframe #traditionaltechniques

Today we are steam bending kayak ribs. The bow ri

Today we are steam bending kayak ribs. The bow ribs in my F1 design take such a steep V shape that even after cutting away the inside edge of the mortise with a carving knife and I still have to literally crack the gunnels to get the right shape.
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I fix the cracks with glue later if I need to.
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#skinonframekayak #steambending #buildingstuff

The only part of building one of my skin on frame

The only part of building one of my skin on frame kayaks that’s actually hard is creating this steam bent keyhole cockpit coaming, and most of that is just because you need perfect quality in Bending Oak to make the tight bend at the apex.
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It’s been getting harder to find Oregon White Oak lately so for these
coamings I’m using some white oak from @jwswanandsons. Quercus Alba is definitely stiffer than our local species, but it will still make the required bends and the wood quality is excellent.
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As always, steaming time is completely random. You just have to figure out what works best with that particular board.
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Personally if I was building my first skin on frame kayak I would probably just buy one of these pre-fabricated from us, but I’ve definitely had first time builders tackle the challenge and succeed.
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I’m pretty obsessive about the shaping of these because there’s a thin line between a coaming that is narrow enough to give you good knee grip, but still wide enough to allow you to raise your knees for comfort. Also for my modern kayaks I’m only using double lip coamings these days to give solid purchase for a spray skirt and a sea sock. I personally don’t like sea socks but I want people to have the option.
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#steambending #bendingwood #woodworking #boatbuilding #kayakbuild #skinonframe #bentwood

List of scavenged wood for the upcoming kayak buil

Perfect or… maybe knot? Today I cracked into on

Perfect or… maybe knot? Today I cracked into one of the weirdest batches of bending Oak I’ve ever cut.
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Dripping wet, check.
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Straight grain, check.
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Quartersawn, check.
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Dozens of pin knots some of which weren’t visible on the faces or edges, WTF???
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The occasional kick in the wallet from missing pin knots during purchasing is to be expected but this is ridiculous.
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Out of three 8 foot boards I couldn’t get enough ribs for two kayaks and had to send Liz south to get more from my buddy who had purchased from the same batch. He cherry picked his best stock and when I cut into it this morning… same problem. More pin knots not visible on the face or the edge!?
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At the end of the day I think I’m actually paying to send clear kayak ribs out the door, and that’s not including gas or labor, ouch!
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#woodworking #skinonframe #wood #boatbuilding

Starting work on a couple new boats this week and

Starting work on a couple new boats this week and using up shop scraps and some salvaged wood in the process. After rehabbing the cracked reject gunnels yesterday, today I plugged the deck beam mortises originally intended for a flat deck F1 to be re-purposed for a normal F1. I normally advise against this because even though the space is filled it interrupts the longitudinal fibers and compromises the strength of gunnels, but because it’s my own boat I feel fine with the risk.
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Glued up some curved deck beams. The laminations are alternating layers of western red cedar from a chunk of 4 x 4 that I literally found on the side of the road yesterday, and some yellow cedar that I found at a salvage yard about four years ago.
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#skinonframe #buildingstuff

Western red cedar is great stuff, but it splits ea

Western red cedar is great stuff, but it splits easily along the grain. Ordinary cracks are no problem because you can just pry them open and floss the crack with a strip of glue soaked paper, but wind shake can be a little more annoying to deal with.
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Wind shake occurs when an older tree flexes in the wind and the grain starts to separate. It’s especially insidious because it’s often invisible in until you happen to flex a particular workpiece exactly the right way and you dozens of tiny parallel cracks appear.
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Here I’m rescuing a set of gunnels I discarded earlier this year because I didn’t wanna deal with the problem. The razor blades open up the cracks and the heat gun helps the epoxy to penetrate.
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If anyone else has another method for dealing with this particular problem I would love to know about it.
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#boatbuilding #woodworking #skinonframe #woodworkingtips

The cool thing about our canoe building system is

The cool thing about our canoe building system is that it gives you the freedom to modify the shaping for individual preferences. This pack canoe built by Paul in Dubuque Iowa is a little different than anything that I’ve done so far but it seems do you have turned out really nicely so I’ll let him describe it in his own words:.
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“Finally finished the pack canoe. 13' long, 25.5" wide with 1" of tumblehome, 23.6lb. The changes from official plans are adding foot pegs and bolting in the back rest thwart. It paddled very nice, quick and light feeling. Stable enough, but not barge like feeling.
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For dimensions:
6" curve on the gunwales for the shear line.
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24.5 width to outside of gunwales for tumblehome. The tumblehome is really subtle, but I think it looks nice.
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1.5" rocker, end to end.
That amount of rocker is nice. Much easier to turn than the Hornbeck, but still tracks pretty well.
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Thanks again to Brian for the plans and help. Not to forget, JSwan Boatworks for the ribs that made it all possible.”
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#steambending #canoebuilding #packcanoe #skinonframe

Here’s another great Cape Falcon solo canoe exam

Here’s another great Cape Falcon solo canoe example build by @tpebs . Being a powerline technician Tanner had access to old power poles which he milled with a chainsaw for the longitudinal pieces!
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Living on the Canadian Prairie local wood for the ribs wasn’t really an option so he imported the White Oak, which is always a bit steep on cost but totally worth the money to avoid the stress of trying to steam bend bad wood.
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The boat itself is 14’8” long, 12” deep, and 30 inches wide (before tumblehome) with 2 inches of tumblehome at the Gunwales, and 1 1/2 inches of rocker from end to end. Based on my experience building the same boat it should weigh about 31 pounds.
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#canoe #canoebuilding #skinonframecanoe

First cut with the Metabo 36 V cordless plunge rou

First cut with the Metabo 36 V cordless plunge router!
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After 25 years with my ‘beat up to the point of being unsafe’ porter cable router I decided to use the re-film for all of my router jig videos as an excuse to buy this cordless Metabo
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Only time will tell if this ends up being a decent tool but I bought it because literally every other plunge router on the market right now has some deficiency I can’t live with.
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I think the closest other thing that would work for me is the Dewalt but it doesn’t actually come with a 1/4 inch, collet, just a 1/2” collet and a 1/4” collet insert which is just ridiculous.
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@dewalttough seriously?
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So I decided to take a chance on this @metabo_power_tools because even though I’ve never been a Hitachi fan, it has almost all the right features for the work I do (the plunge lock needs work) and I feel like battery technology has come far enough for a full-size router. Can’t really say more until I use it for five or six years.
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Anybody else have one of these? How is it holding up for you?
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#woodworkingtools #boatbuilding #skinonframe

Generally speaking I hate most tandem kayaks, whic

Generally speaking I hate most tandem kayaks, which is why I designed the F2. At 20 feet long 24 1/2 inches wide and 45 pounds, it’s fast, light and maneuvers surprisingly well without a rudder.
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Over the last year Angus built a pair of these for his family in North Ireland so everyone could get out on the water together.
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It looks like a blast with the family but this is far from a flat water toy. Check out the last couple photos from a YouTube video that his buddy David made of them rolling the F2 and also surfing it off the coast. I can’t put a direct link here but you can see the YouTube title so it should be pretty effortless to find.
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#skinonframekayak #tandemkayak #kayaking #buildyourownboat

I’m redoing my router setup videos for my kayak

I’m redoing my router setup videos for my kayak building course. We replace the factory base with one made of 1/2” plywood so we can build various router guides and jigs.
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Getting the hole spacing precise is important because otherwise you risk cross threading the mounting holes.
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Normally you can just trace the factory plate onto the plywood to find the hole spacing, but if you’re missing the factory base for some reason, this is another way to do it.
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#woodworkingtips #woodworkingtools #skinonframe #buildingstuff

Here’s some raw footage from a bad day out kayak

Here’s some raw footage from a bad day out kayak sailing. Broke a rudder cable, burned through 2 cleats, started getting hit by 45mph gusts, (forecast was 15-20) missed my first roll ever under sail, swam for 1/2 an hour, and had to carry the kayak up 45 degree slopes covered with poison oak for an emergency extraction. (Thank you Liz and David).
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Check out the YouTube video I just posted for full details and more footage. It’s an entertaining story with lots of great lessons for sea kayakers.
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Hit that sound button to get a sense of the wind.
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#kayaksailing #seakayaking #kayakfail #skinonframekayak #kayakadventures

Lots of great pictures coming in from students rig

Lots of great pictures coming in from students right now. This pair of F1 kayaks were built by @zachary_meehan and his brother Aaron in Arizona, then they drove them to the Pacific Northwest to paddle in the San Juan islands and also off the Oregon coast!
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Really nice work on the shaping on these. Getting the rib shaping right is so important for performance on an F1. I also really like that they added my new action camera mount. I made a whole video about this on YouTube, basically it’s perfectly positioned for rear deck footage and also easy to operate from the cockpit!
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#skinonframekayak #buildyourownboat #steambending #kayakbuilding

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Brian Schulz
brian@capefalconkayaks.com
Call or text: 503 354 4939

4935 NE 11th Avenue
Portland, Oregon 97211
Hours by appointment only

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