: . . . I am going to use these two boats for show and
: tell as well as paddling. So I want them to look good, inside and out. I
: am hoping to find a niche in building small boats, paddles, etc. Someday I
: am going to need something to do in my retirement to make a little extra
: income.

If you aren't retiring this year, don't plan to use these boats as your exemplars. By the time you do retire you will have built several more boats, and they will look better than your first or second attempts. Besides, you'll want to use these first boats for paddling, and a few years of use will eventually add marks, so they won't be so pretty when you want display models.

Keep track of how much time it takes you to build your boats. Include the time you spend researching designs and suppliers. You'll save only part of this on future boats. The remaining hours are long. Unless you can find a market for very expensive boats, and produce the absolute highest quality, you'll need to price your products closer to something people can afford.

If your market will pay $1000 for a boat, and your materials are $300, then you'll get $7 an hour for putting in 100 hours on a boat. Average time for a first builder of a stripper is three times that. If you are producing boats on a small-scale assembly line you might be able to do stitch and glue boats in 40 to 60 hours each. With some experience at boat building, working up a new design would probably take 150 hours.

I figure 50 weeks a year to work, at 40 hours a week, gives me 2000 work hours.
$7 an hour would earn me $14,000 a year. Personally, I'd look for something that paid better.

Paddle making can be much more profitable. I've seen handmade canoe paddles selling for $200 and up, and cedar GP paddles can sell fro $50 to $150. Material costs on an all-wood paddle are about $7 plus amounts of resin and glass--if you use glass. You can make several a week if you work slowly, or several a day if you use a jig and a router to rough out some of your work.

You can throw 50 paddles in your car and drive to a canoe show, where you can sell them from the smallest booth. To move more than 2 kayaks to a show you'll need a trailer--which will take all your profits from the first boat you build. (Can't just stack them on the car and risk damaging the finish). With paddles you'll get a much better income flow, and not need to stockpile some very large products.

I don't know of anyone getting rich by building a few boats a a year. From what I've seen, people who make money have some other sidelines (sell kits, plans, materials), have primary jobs and do their boatbuilding as a sideline, or have a spouse who is steadily employed and qualifies for group health insurance through their employer. (Health insurance for retirees is a killer. You need to build and sell at least one boat a year to cover your Medicare supplement insurance premiums.)

While there is money to be made in the water-recreation area, kayaks themselves have a relatively low profit margin. Kayak stores make more profit off of the accessories they have on the walls. People who are shopping for the best price are going to go with a plastic kayak manufactured in minutes in a mold. People who want something custom will pay more for it, but if you are only building custom, each boat will be unique, and take longer to build, eating up your overall profits and your average hourly wage.

Generally speaking, to make a small fortune building boats, it really helps to start with a large fortune, and lose it as slowly as possible.

There are plenty of boatbuilders who are obsessed with building boats. Addicted even. They'll build boats just because they get a thrill from doing so. They do it as a hobby. Cost is a concern, but profit is not even a factor.
It can be sad when when one of these people tries to make a business out of boatbuilding: they end up losing their favorite hobby.

Just a few thoughts. Good luck whichever way you go.

PGJ