> I am wondering if anyone out there has made a tortured plywood kayak and
> If you designed it yourself or if you Made it from a plan. I am very
> interested in the idea but don't know where to start.

> thanks

> Dave

Get Chris Kulczycki's book: `The Kayak Shop'. It has plans and a very readable write-up about building boats this way. I have already purchased plywood for building a Yare from his plans. It looks like a simple and fast way to assemble a nice looking boat.

The plans in the book are reduced. the type is tiny, but readable. I used a drawing program (IMSI's Turbo Sketch) on my computer to redraw them, and then printed them out full size on MANY small pieces of paper. (Yes, it DID keep my printer busy)

After taping them all together I am absolutely certain I would not go that route again for this boat. It is such a simple design that it would me take less time to lay out the plans directly on the actual plywood panels, using a long flexible straightedge and a ruler, than to do the data entry and assemble the printed pages.

For under $50 you can buy the book, one sheet of doorskin or 1/8th inch plywood, some fiberglas tape and a pint of epoxy and assemble the hull -- just to see how things go together. Doing that would give you a reasonably inexpensive education in building these things. You don't have to glass the seams, just twisting it into shape with the wires will be enough to give you a full size mockup. If you like what you see, get some good marine plywood and build it right.

If you want to modify things, do that on your mockup: Wire everything together, see how it looks, and if you like the changes, then clip the wires and use the pieces from your mockup as fullsize patterns for cutting your good pieces. You can trace around the mockup pieces with a pencil, and cut the good ones with a sabre saw, or, if you want to get fancy, use the mockup pieces as a guide and cut the good pieces using a router with a ball bearing guide following the shape of the mockup pieces.

Hope this helps. The weather is improving. Time to get out and start building.

Paul Jacobson