Boat Building Forum

Find advice on all aspects of building your own kayak, canoe or any lightweight boats

Review: Building Strip-Planked Boats
By:John Caldeira
Date: 5/5/2009, 6:02 pm

My review on Amazon follows below. I encourage other readers to review and post on Amazon and elsewhere:

A GOOD BOOK FOR BUILDERS OF WOOD-STRIP AND FIBERGLASS BOATS
May 2, 2009 By John D. Caldeira (Rakiraki, Fiji)

Building Strip-Planked Boats by Nick Schade primarily describes methods for building beautiful boats from wood strips, fiberglass and epoxy. It updates many techniques that were described in the author's earlier book, The Strip-Built Sea Kayak. This book also provides offset dimensions and instructions to build a dinghy, a one-person canoe and a rough-water sea kayak.

This book provides an excellent overview of wood-core and fiberglass construction, and detailed information on working with wood strips, fiberglass and epoxy. Many practical tips are included, as well as suggestions for avoiding and dealing with the most common problems.

However, the book seems to be missing a few chapters. Significant information for the first-time builder is absent in this book: The kayak section contains no information on the construction of footbraces, rudders, retractable skegs, or outfitting the boat with deck rigging and a seat. Best practices for measuring epoxy, preserving brushes and rollers by freezing, and webbing for deck riggings are also absent.

Other best building practices receive only scant mention, such as using masking tape and a sharp blade to trim secondary layers of fiberglass. The book would also have benefited from more photographs of the finished boats.

The book would have been more appealing if it offered designs for a more general-purpose canoe and a more general-purpose kayak, as fewer people will be interested in these niche designs.

This book is a good supplement for boat-builders, but most first-time builders of a strip boat would probably learn more from Nick Schade's first book, The Strip-Built Sea Kayak: Three Rugged, Beautiful Boats You Can Build, or Ted Moores' books Canoecraft: An Illustrated Guide to Fine Woodstrip Construction and Kayakcraft: Fine Woodstrip Kayak Construction.

This is a 3-star book.
***
Sincerely,
John
PS: In general, the book seems 'rushed' into production and would have benefitted from more peer review.

Messages In This Thread

Review: Building Strip-Planked Boats
John Caldeira -- 5/5/2009, 6:02 pm
Re: Review: Building Strip-Planked Boats
Kurt Maurer -- 5/5/2009, 7:11 pm
Footbraces *Pic*
John Caldeira -- 5/5/2009, 7:40 pm