Keilidgh Irene - From a Rib...

   If you want a wood frame kayaq, be prepared to climb a tree or two. And if it's on a bluff to get the knees you need, you may have to go out on a limb to get what you want. Either way, I was using muscles I had forgotten I had. The number of times I've climbed a tree since I was a boy you could count on one hand, and probably have fingers left over. If you're careful with the saw.
   The project awaiting my efforts was finding and shaping a knee timber to secure the cockpit on it's forward end, and the deck ridge pole immediately in front of it. The ridge pole would extend forward to be swept upward into the byforcated bow.
   The tree that had the knees I wanted was a close grained pine at the edge of the bluff. It's not a bad drop, but the slope made handling the saws a challange, as a lot of wood was to be cut for the shapes I needed. It took an hour to do, which gave our 115 pound Chesapeake/Sheppard time for some fun on the waterfront.
   We returned to the shop, and set up for trimming the cut knees to shape.

   As the wood was green, the work was slow, requiring a careful shaping with saw, chisel and draw blade. But a few hours later, the knee's basic form was squared off, and the cockpit's forward knee brace was oiled and ready to set aside to cure. By the time I'm ready to start the final shaping of the knee, so it will fit snugly into the framework, it will have set up enough to be worked without cracking.

   The ends are left in the round with additional stock for creating the final shape of the frame to fit into it's assigned section. There is much to do before that is done.
   It's a lot of work for each piece of the kayaq, and there's 56 pieces in each of the Arctic Eskimo boats I build of the North Pacific framing arrangement.

   But the end result is worth it.
   Life can be like that... - WKD