: Hey forum,

: I've been lurking on here for a while now, researching SOF kayaks.
: Honestly, I haven't so much as set a foot in a kayak yet, but
: from what I've seen and heard, I'll enjoy them. It's another
: excuse to do something fun while the wife thinks I'm exercising
: *grin*. I'm not keen on simply buying a rigid plastic kayak,
: either, for a variety of reasons. The foremost is simply that I
: enjoy and take pride in building. My other hobby is building and
: flying (oh, and repairing) radio controlled model aircraft.

: From what I've read, Tom Yost's Sea Tour 15 EXP looks like it'll
: match my expectations pretty well. Correct me if I'm wrong
: (please), but it should be fairly stable for a guy with no kayak
: experience, plenty of extra capacity (I'm 5'11 & ~170 lbs),
: and still give reasonable performance & maneuverability. A
: good general purpose design with room for me to grow into. The
: Sea Bee 13' was another thought, primarily due to its apparent
: reputation of having great stability, but I bet I'll be happier
: with the extra capacity of the Sea Tour 15 EXP. I do plan on
: attending the general kayak instruction, along with safety
: courses. Being in the Capital District of New York gives me a
: few options in that department, so I'm thinking I should be able
: to find an instructor familiar with SOF kayaks.

: I gotta get it built first, though. My first challenge appears to
: be material selection... the big box stores in the area don't
: appear to cater to the boat building crowd, as they don't carry
: marine plywood. There are some local companies that appear to
: cater to contractors directly, as their web site indicates they
: only sell in lots (since I'm not building a house or mass
: producing kayaks, that's not going to work). Short of calling a
: few contractors to see if they're willing to sell scrap or
: excess building supplies, I might have to do a bit of
: compromising and/or putting extra effort in to get what I want.
: From what I've seen, I can pick up exterior grade plywood for
: the formers/cross sections at Lowe's: untreated pine, B/C grade.
: A 15/32" thick, 2' x 4' section runs ~$10. The plans call
: for 1/2", but I think the missing 1/32" isn't going to
: be critical (am I wrong?). Since it's B/C grade, I'll probably
: end up picking through their selection. All I've got to do is
: find plywood that's good along the form of the former itself,
: and hope there's no interior voids, right?

: As for the stringers, gunwales, and keel... my local Lowe's does
: carry WRC: 1x6x12 for ~$12.50. I'll need to scarf join each
: member, but I don't think I'm going to run into 16' WRC locally.
: The ~23' scarfed members (allowing for a 1 foot scarf joint
: overlap) should give me plenty of extra length to play around
: with, along with plenty of scrap.

: I'm fairly lucky in the tool range... my parents used to run a
: portable saw mill business, so I've got access to quite the
: range of power tools. Circular saw, miter saw & stand (if I
: remember correctly), jig saw, table saw, drill press, even a
: planer. Cutting the formers out precisely shouldn't be a
: problem, nor ripping the WRC or planing it to the recommended
: size. I've never used a scarf joint before, but it doesn't look
: too bad... as long as I'm correct in remembering the miter saw
: & stand. I might need a bunch of hefty clamps, as my model
: airplane clamps aren't going to cut it *grin*.

: Am I headed in the right direction? I'm more than open to advice
: and suggestions.

: - Noel
Hi, you might have seen some of my posts here. I am building a Sea Tour 15 exp and have chosen it for pretty much the same reasons as you ( that and I gross about 240 to start with). Mine first build is well underway and I was able to use a 1x12x16 from the local lumber yard, but it is just regular old pine ( not recommended but it was clear and available) So far a table saw to rip the 1x12 into stringers and jig saw are all the power tools I have really used. I considered doing the scarf joints but was able to get full length so managed to avoid them.

So far my biggest problem has been getting the formers cut out well. I will admit to being in a rush and using a "close" enough ( read WAY to coarse) jig saw blade. I also tried to make do with some CDX ply, it was miserable to try and get a line on. I ended up buying a piece of ACX much nicer to draw on. then there was the whole debacle of printing the offsets in one table and accidentally dropping down a line on a couple of the points and having to redraw them. In all it has been a great process and I am hoping to glue my stringers up today. leaving finishing for tuesday night and covering sometime later this week !

I think you will be able to view all of my photo's at this link http://www.flickr.com/photos/40438990@N07/ just in case you want to see all the ways not to do things.

Good luck!
Dan