: A plywood frame and stringer construction skin on frame is surely
: the quickest and least expensive, although a traditional
: construction might be as inexpensive if you are good at
: scrounging wood. Certainly a ply and stringer is faster.

: Check out Tom Yost's site, www.yostwerks.com, which has already
: been mentioned.

: You can save time and money by lashing the frame together, rather
: than gluing with epoxy. Not buying epoxy will save about $80.
: You can lash with artificial sinew, which is basically wax
: coated flat nylon.

: Any reasonable lumberyard (other than the big blue or big orange
: box) should be able to order you "marine" ply, which
: is often AB immersion rated. True marine ply is okoume wood, but
: regular immersion ply is typically fir, and could be had for
: maybe $60-80 a sheet as opposed to $130 for okoume. I used
: select yellow pine boards to rip my stringers, and admittedly
: that was expensive, but not unbearably so. Don't worry about
: painting the ply with epoxy - hey, it's immersion rated, and the
: inside of the kayak isn't really all that wet, unless you're
: practicing rolling, and it won't be wet for long.

: You can make a tighter skin with nylon or dacron from George Dyson
: or www.skinboats.org, and coat with inexpensive Zar polyurethane
: varnish (or almost any paint, for that matter.) I'm not sure of
: the cost of the vinyl Tom uses, as I always knew I was going to
: sew and coat the skin.

: Go for it, you'll have a blast, Tom's designs are all very nice,
: and you've got plenty of people here and www.qajaqusa.org's
: forums to help you!

: Brian

Actually there is quite a bit of true marine grade fir plywood, downside is it checks. I oil them so that doesn't matter. For inexpensive and still long lasting construction you should be able to get MDO which isn't real pretty but works very well and takes oil also.

I've still got something like 10 or 12 sheets of 1/2" marine grade fir, so I'll be building them that way for quite awile :)

Bill H.