: Hey, I'm a senior in high school, and for my senior project, I'm
: building a kayak.

Great idea! Welcome to the forum. Spend as much time as you can reading the archives and you'll find many tips which will accelerate your project.

: I had a few questions. First of all, how many
: total hours does a kayak usually take to finish?

General rule-of-thumb numbers:
Cedar strip construction: 300 hours
Stitch & glue ; plywood construction: 100 to 150 hours
Skin-covered, wood frame construction: 25 to 100 hours.

These are WORK hours. 2 to 4 hours a day is typical. Then you knock off to let glue dry, or to let epoxy or varnish harden overnight.

You can ALWAYS find ways to spend more time. But, you can frequently find ways to shave some time from these numbers.

The most common way is to trade time for money. Typically that would be buying a precut kit. You pay for the convenience, but you don't have to shop for materials and the major pieces are already cut to the proper size.

There are other time savers which are suitable for the different kayak construction methods. Some are pretty good tradeoffs.

For example, with a skin-on-frame kayak you can cover the frame with a piece of heavy fabric and the make that fabric waterproof by covering it with several coats of paint, varnish, or some similar sealant. Or, you can cover the frame with a fabric which is already waterproof. In the second case you don't need to pay for paint and you don't have to spend time applying the paint. And you can paddle sooner as there is no need to wait for the paint to dry.

: Second, how hard is it to start from scratch.

Pretty easy. You'll need a few tools and a place to work.

:A friend suggested a kit, bit
: that's a tad out of my price range, so I decided I would build
: it from scratch.

What's your budget? We'll try to help you meet it.
: And third, is there any good supplier (wood,
: materials, etc.) in connecticut, or around northwest
: Connecticut?

Clark-Craft near Buffalo NY
www.clarkcraft.com has plans and materials. Newfound woodworks. Google 'em for their hours, location, etc. A lot of stuff can be obtained by mail order through websites. If you buy plans the designer will usually have a list of suppliers for the materials.

: And like I said, I'm new to this, so any other advice would be
: greatly appreciated.

Hit amazon.com and search for books on building kayaks. George Putz's Canvas Covered Boats is one; so are a couple of books by a guy from Connecticut named Nick Schade. Collect the titles and ISBN info and take the list to your local library. They probably won't have these books in their collection, but ask them to check for them through (magic words here): interlibrary loan.

Good luck with your project.

PGJ