Boat Building Forum

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

Re: Shop: tortured ply - old kayaks & rowing scull
By:Bill Hamm
Date: 1/3/2010, 12:08 am

: Hi, i was looking at some old wooden racing sculls, flat water
: racing kayaks and a surf ski yesterday. They were all old but in
: excellent, and useable, condition. Their construction was
: similar as they were all wood with round chines and I'm assuming
: a single or double ply - it looked like a single sheet for the
: hull and decks respectively. I'm assuming a single sheet of wood
: had been cut to the right shape, then steamed and folded around
: a form. Beautiful looking things...

: Does anyone know how they are made? any old books, videos etc
: around?

The wood shell was possibly made like the article in WoodenBoat as mentioned, it's not plywood, it's one piece of very thin WRC (I think) wrapped over a steam heated form to get the shape, very interesting construction method.

The others if they are older than the early 60's are likely hot molded, a fairly expensive process that was pretty popular before fiberglass. Now we do similiar shapes cold molded with epoxy, a much more simple and far less expensive process.

Bill H.

Messages In This Thread

Shop: tortured ply - old kayaks & rowing sculls
craig -- 1/2/2010, 10:50 am
Re: Shop: tortured ply - old kayaks & rowing scull
Reg Lake -- 1/2/2010, 1:25 pm
Re: Shop: tortured ply - old kayaks & rowing scull
Reg Lake -- 1/2/2010, 1:20 pm
Re: Shop: tortured ply - old kayaks & rowing scull
Reg Lake -- 1/2/2010, 1:18 pm
Re: Shop: tortured ply - old kayaks & rowing scull
JeffHouser -- 1/3/2010, 12:22 pm
Re: Shop: tortured ply - old kayaks & rowing scull
Bill Hamm -- 1/3/2010, 12:08 am
Re: Shop: tortured ply - old kayaks & rowing scull
Etienne Muller - Ireland -- 1/2/2010, 3:34 pm
Re: Shop: tortured ply - old kayaks & rowing scull
Reg Lake -- 1/2/2010, 1:33 pm
Re: Shop: tortured ply - old kayaks & rowing scull
John D. -- 1/3/2010, 5:23 pm
Re: Shop: tortured ply - old kayaks & rowing scull
Ken Brunton -- 1/2/2010, 1:42 pm
Re: Shop: tortured ply - old kayaks & rowing scull
Mike Bielski -- 1/2/2010, 1:22 pm
Re: Shop: tortured ply - old kayaks & rowing scull
Ken Brunton -- 1/2/2010, 12:10 pm