John, who is a big guy, had been thinking about making his own kayak for solo trips. Once the decision was made to Build-With-Us at Canadian Canoes, Jurek Okon went about setting up the molds.

In one long evening, the entire strongback and molds were in place just waiting for John to get off the night shift...

With Pat Frenette's help, the final task was to ensure that the molds were held in place with temporary stabilizers.

So, on a hot and humid August afternoon (2004) John began his project by getting aquainted wth the venerable SPOKE SHAVE.

Marking the inside stem center line(s).
The stems will be attached at the ends of the kayak.
The lines tell you where the cedar strips must land on the stem. That means the stems need to be shaved toward the lines you draw.

Before attaching the stems at the ends, I am securing the sheer with screws onto the "skeleton" mold.
The sheer is what connects the hull (bottom of the kayak) to the deck (top of the kayak).

The inside stem is being attached with a screw.
This stem is located at the bow (front of the kayak).
When all the cedar strips are laid and glued, an "outer" stem is attached on top of the "inside stem.
The stems provide impact strength at the front and back of the kayak.

This is real spoke shaving, not target practice!!
The stem needs to be shaved into a bevel so the cedar strips will land as flat as possible onto the stem to maximize glue strength

The strips are being stapled onto the skeleton.
The staples are temporary and will be removed once the glue is dry and all strips have been laid.
You can see some glue pouring out as the strips are squeezed together.

On the opposite side, you can see the glue dripping out between the "bead" of one strip and the "cove" of another strip.
Using bead and cove strips add great strength to the kayak.

It is easier to spoke shave the stem after laying a few cedar strips in order to get the "right" bevel. As you can see, I am approaching the bottom of the hull with the spoke shave tool. The bevel on the stem becomes a more horizontal bevel as the bottom of the kayak is reached. The goal is to lay the cedar strips on the stem so that they will lay as flat and as snug as possible when glued/stapled.

Here I am wiping off glue with a wet rag right after I laid and stapled a cedar strip. You can see the water bucket below the kayak that is used to rinse the rag. I've learned that simple carpenters glue really does a great job at bonding the strips to each other.

I am stapling a strip the mold. A little more concentration and strength is needed when laying the strips at this stage because they need to be bended and twisted as they meet the stem at each end of the kayak. The western red cedar strips I used were extremely flexible

I am just amazed at how those cedar strips had bended into place and now held in the mold by the glue and staples. Oops, I didn't tuck my tummy in and Ron caught me off guard again with his camera. It will be tougher for me to keep my weight down as I get older. Thank God I am building a large long Kayak that I hope to keep for a very long time!

I had been gluing and stapling a cedar strip on one side and then laying another strip on the opposite side, one at a time. But now, the strips will be laid on one side until the centre line is reached. The centre line runs over the vertical pencil marks drawn on the molds. (In this picture, you can see the vertical pencil lines on each mold between the metal ruler and the strip I'm stapling)

A centre line is drawn on top of the strips. We used a tight string from one end of the kayak to the other. I could then start to chisel towards the centre line. I was afraid of ruining my work by using the crude method of chiselling. But the cedar strips teared away quite nicely!! A small plane was then used to get an nice fine cut to the centre line. Even with a chisel alone, you can see how straight the cut is behind me.

Now I can start laying strips on the opposite side. You must cut each strip at their ends so they are "pointy" like a triangle. The goal is to get a fit so that they can be glued to the strip at the centre line as well as gluing the bead and cove on the other side. Those little pieces of wood are called "buttons". The were nailed onto the mold because staples were not strong enough to keep cedar strips in place.

Inserting the last strip. A rabbet plane and sanding was used to get the perfect fit. The last strip was about half the width of a regular strip and also pointed at the ends.