I just finished building a Pygmy Osprey. I used 2 sheets of 3/4 inch 8ft particleboard cut to 36" wide. A friend of mine is a contractor and supplied 2, 18 foot 2X4s. I put the 2X4s across 3 horses. I used drywall screws to secure the particleboard to the 2X4s.

This worked great except for the initial butt joint gluing. 36 inches was not wide enough and it extended the number of nights it took to glue the butt joints. I am starting a Coho next week. I am going to use full with 4' x 8' particleboard. Note that the particleboard is only good for one boat. All the excess epoxy dips on it and hardens on it (but that is better than my garage floor).

One trick I learned while building is to not use the chalk line Pygmy recommends for measuring the offset during the butt seam gluing. I had my garage open at the night I started. I snapped the first line put the chalk line away and watched as a light breeze turned the line into a fuzzy mess. In stead I pounded finish nails in the ends of my workbench and stretched thin nylon string between them. I used these sting lines for my offsets. Another trick I learned was to use finish nails in the bench to hold the ends of the panels to the nylon. This eliminated the jumping back and forth between the two ends and the middle making sure everything stayed lined up.

Good-luck and enjoy Don

> I am planning to build my kayak in the basement. Yes, I can get it out
> easily once it's completed. On what type of table should I build the
> kayak? Any tips or tricks that would be helpful. Pygmy suggested I build a
> table from a ripped sheet of ply wood and 3 saw horses, making a 2' by 16'
> table. The pictures in their catalog show a table made from ply wood that
> appears a full 4' wide. The wider table allows the builder to lay all the
> pieces of the kayak on the table. Thanks again for your thoughts.

> Fritz