> Nick has free planes right here for a stitch and glue yak, I would strongly
> suggest you start there.

I agree with Rick: Get some kind of plans. If you have not found the URL for Nicks plans, here it is:

http://www.guillemot-kayaks.com/Building/Stitch%26Glue/StitchAndGluePlans.html

Two other sources for plans are Chris Kulczycki's book `The Kayak Shop: Three Elegant Wooden Boats You Can Build', and David Hazen's book: `Strippers Guide to Canoe Building/With Drawings'.

Both are sold through www.Amazon.com for under $20 (US) plus shipping.

If you are interested in building a strip kayak, Hazen has the full size plans for two different boats. By adjusting the distance between the forms you can make these boats a little longer or shorter, giving you some options for a double.

If you use Nick's free plans, forget his table of panel offsets and use the table of forms offsets. Get some large sheets of paper (yesterday's newspapers work fine) a ruler and a pencil, and graph the points on the paper. Graph the width numbers as X (left to right) coordinates, and graph the negative value as well as the positive value. The height values are put on the Y axis ( up and down). You just need these once.

Get a thin, flexible strip of wood anduse it to connect the dots as nice round curves. Start on the middle form first. Let this determine the cross section of the fattest part of your boat. Work toward the bow. If you set the page with the graphed points on top of the drawing of the previous form, you should be able to see roughly how much curve you want between the marked dots of you graph to keep from overdoing things. When you have a few done, stack the pages on a window. (do this during the day!) The sunlight coming through should let you check to see if any of the forms have bulged in the wrong places. A little work with a pencil and eraser now will make things easier later.

After you have all the pieces drawn up to the bow, work toward the stern. Same process as above.

If you can do this in three hours you'll be doing just fine. Don't be surprised if it takes more time, though.

When you go to cut the forms, you can use rubber cement to glue the paper to your wood. You do not need a lot. Glue the first one, and cut it out. The second one you cut will be better glued. I guarantee it. If your paper is wrinkled, try using a household iron to flatten and straighten it, before you draw on it, and keep it flat up until you cut your forms.

You save all this time and effort if you buy full size plans, or use the ones from Hazen's book, but there are many boats that you can build from measurements by using this process. The choice is yours, and the availability and price of these things may determine your choice.

If you are thinking of building a plywood kayak using Stitch and glue methods you should be able to get enough information from Kulczycki's book, but he has reduced the plans to fit the page size of the book -- and some marks are very tiny. If you use Nick's free plans you'll have the panel offsets to work with. Scarph together the plywood panels and then draw your marks right on them. Draw on the `bad' side of a panel. This will be on the inside of the boat. When you are ready to cut, you place a second panel under this, with the good sides of both panels touching each other in the center of this sandwich, and the bad sides on the outside. After you cut them, you will have mirror image pieces for the left and right sides.

Best of luck with this.

Paul Jacobson