Making the gunwales

The first thing to do is to make the gunwales. The ribs and deck beams both directly attach through mortise and tenon joints to the gunwales so they must be the strongest pieces in the boat. They also require the most precision and care. I had to make sure that they were matched correctly for stiffness and curves. Each piece is naturally more limber when bent one way instead of the other and can also have natural curves in  a couple directions. Since I got both of my gun'l's from the same piece of wood, I had very little to worry about.

Once I had them properly matched, I lined them up as best I could to each other and clamped them together firmly. This way I could plane down the edges and trim them to exact length. I could also shape the ends this way and keep them identical through some fairly fluid design. Since they'll be held at a 73 degree angle once in kayak form, a cut at a complementary angle is taken from the ends starting at the halfway mark and heading to the bottom of the board. Then, to give the lines a little sweeter look around the bow and stern, a shallow curves was planes out in the last 70 inches on each side, maxing out at half an inch. As you can see in the picture, it's still quite noticeable.

Once this is complete, it's time to start on the mortises for the ribs and deck beams. I used a pre-made jig for keeping square on the rib mortises and I had to make one for the deck beams. As mentioned, the gun'l's are on a 73 degree angle and the deck beams are straight, so the holes have to be at a 17 degree angle to counter this. I used a drill with electrical tape to make sure I kept consistent depth through out the rib mortises but the deck beams go right through.

Now the deck beams are ready to be made. For this, first you have to cut them down to length, which is just a rough measure because you have to mark them and cut the tenons in next. This process could use a jig, which I attempted twice but it fell short of adequate both times and I used two combination squares to mark both the top and bottom point at which it should touch the gun'l and on both front and back. After this, I played connect the dots, drew in a one and a quarter inch tenon perpendicular to that line and then played cut within the lines. At first tenon's seemed more daunting than anything else but my first (correctly measured...) beam fit like a bug in a rug! Now I'm pretty much up to speed except for my paddle which will be the next post.