: Hi All,

: I had a meeting in the city the other week. I had a half hour to kill, so I
: stopped in at a nearby boat books shop to browse. I ended up leaving with
: George Putz's book.

Ha! Ha! Ha! Gotchya!! Well looks like we have another convertie. Just like good fishing bait. Leave a book laying around and you will find them.

: Being an addict like most of you, of course, now I have to build one .

: Can anyone give me any comments about building the Putz Walrus?

Yeh, Use good quality plywood, probably 3/4" thick, for the forms, and get the offsets from Paul Jacobson. He wrote up the shortened version some time back and you can mount them to your work-bench or strongback. Mike Hanks did a few little tweaks to the design that worked well, and I'm sure that he would let you steal his figures. Bill Price and Roger Nuffer have good web-sites and I believe Mike Hanks does as well, so there's no end of good info and pics. to use while building.

: I also have a friend who approached me to ask if I'd mind helping him build a
: kayak, so, is this boat suitable for a first time builder? I don't want to
: advise my friend to start something that he might not be able to finish, I
: want him to share my habit. Er, hobby.

All of us did the Walrus as a first time S O F builder and it's pretty straight forward building. I think your friend should be fairly confident in building this boat. I found that the most work was building the bench and forms. There are a few things that the Author leaves to the builder to deside what to do, such as deck design/shape and cockpit ( which is what I'm doing now ) and a few others. I have one good suggestion on the forms but will have to wait till I get home from work to look up the pictures of that.

: Oh, and if anyone (Rehd) has links to websites about building these boats,
: please post em.

Go go the " View User Profiles " and check out Bill Prices site and also Roger Nuffer's. I don't know If Mike Hanks is in there or not, but I'm sure he'll be reading and can give you the URL. LOTS of info there.

: Thanks in advance,

: Paul

Welcome abaord and will be expection some reports and pics soon.

Rehd