: My Dad built a kayak a few years ago, when he had just turned 82
: years old. He had also just been diagnosed with stage four
: cancer. He finished it before he lost his battle with the
: disease, and gave it to me to use with my family.
: It is an older design, two man, from Holland, and looks a lot like
: a "Bootlegger" design.
: I would like to turn this kayak into a cedar stripped, fiberglass
: covered beauty like I've seen in some of the pictures here on
: this site. I plan on removing the marine plywood hull, reshaping
: and strengthening the ribs, and hopefully end up with a lighter
: boat in the process.

: . . .If anyone has any advice for me before I start, I will
: appreciate it.

Don't do it.

It is much easier to build a new boat from scratch than to take apart an existing boat and completely rebuild it.

You will be destroying a legacy your father left for the family to use, and--in the best case-- be replacing it with a year or two of parts and pieces that take up space in the house. In the worst case you'll turn it into a pile of scrap, and have no boat at all.

Build a new boat from plans, or from a kit, and you'll have the cedar strip boat you want, and your family will be able to use your dad's boat, so you don't have to paddle alone.

Read Nick's book.

For a strip built boat you need some kind of a form to bend the strips around. You have an existing kayak, and would need to create forms from that before taking it apart. Each form would take a lot longer to create from an existing boat than to make from plans. Before you make the forms you would need to make tools to help you get the right shape and placement of the forms. In the possible case that your strips would be the same thickness as the existing plywood on your boat, you could make the forms fit the interior of your existing boat. But if your strips are a different thickness, then the forms will be made twice: Once as a copy of the hull measurements, and again to the measure you need for the strip-built version. For all that work you don't get a better boat.

: Thanks for your help in advance, and keep making those beautiful
: boats!

And you should be making one of them too! But the right way to do it is to start with good instructions and plans, not with an existing boat. leave dad's boat alone and build your own. After you've done that you'll have a good idea of how to refurbish either one--and if you still think you want to take apart an existing plywood boat to recreate it in cedar strips--well, it will be a choice you'll have the knowledge to make.

PGJ