Laminated Masik

The Masik is the last and most important deck beam to be completed.  It is arched and will take the force of your legs and hips when rolling and bracing.  Laminating this beam was pretty straight forward although I did run into some slight problems.

The Masik is a laminated beam; I made mine from approximately 1/8” strips of cedar cut an inch wider and about 6 inches longer than the finish product was going to be.  The first problem I encountered was getting consistent thickness of my laminates.  1/8” think and 2 ½” wide strips of wood are almost impossible to cut on my table saw.  I also attempted to plane them with a power plainer but even though the plainer says it will go to 1/8” I found them to be a little thicker than that and they would not bend without splitting.

 

Once I got 10 pieces cut to thickness (this varied do to my table saw) I attempted to bend them with a single form as prescribed in Chris Cunningham’s book.  You need far more clamps than I have to make this work as you can see in the photo.  I just couldn’t get good compression so the layers would bond properly.  I’ve had a little experience with laminating wood in the past and used a press with good results so I decided to try that.  I made the press from a double thickness 2x12 that I glued and screwed together to get enough dimensional height.  I also drilled a couple of hole for my clamps to go into to act as the press.

Once everything was cut and ready to go I gave each layer a generous helping of Tightbond III and placed it in the press lined with wax paper.  The first problem I encountered was my grip clamps can’t generate enough force to compress everything together.  I ended up using pipe clamps to compress the layers and grip clamps to hold everything while I reset the pipe clamps.  Everything shifted a little in the form but that didn’t affect my finished product.

I let it dry for a couple of days then squared up the sides on a table saw.  I found before that it is impossible to keep the sides matched up so I make the strips wider than needed so I can cut it square once everything has dried.  Once I had square sides I laid the pattern I had made from the instructions in the manual I’m using and used that to cut the ends to fit the gunwales.  I did think that Cunningham’s book has you make the Masik to thin so I made mine about a ¼” thicker.  After test fitting and rounding the top and bottom I pegged it into place, and as I’ve done before I glued the pegs in.

With the Masik pegged and sanded I finished off the stringers, from the Masik to deck beam #3, that you can see the photo below of my son standing in the boat hold a broken rib.  The stringers I made from Cherry thinking that since they are pretty thin for the span they make hard wood would be the best.  I also have plenty of cherry lying around.  The stringers connecting deck beam #7 and #8 where also made out of cherry and I completed those at the same time.  These must take your weight as you are getting into the boat and you lay back on them to finish your rolls so they must also be strong.

Overall make the Masik was not very hard once I figured out what the best method for me was going to be.  As I’ve found in much of Chris Cunningham’s book Building the Greenland Kayak  I’ve had to modify the way things are done to fit my tools and skill set.

Bending the D*^$#n Ribs

Bending the ribs is finally done.  This has been the worse part of the project for me; I broke rib after rib until the last four I went back to a traditional way of getting straight grained wood.  Steam bending definitely has a learning curve that was very frustrating for me.  The one thing I learned was to use absolutely straight grained wood if you want any success.

The steam box I used was made from foil faced foam as prescribed in Chris Cunningham’s book.  The lay out in the book is simple and inexpensive.  I held the box together with duct tape and it held up reasonably well even though I used it at least four or five times.  Two modifications I made were to shorten the length of the box so it was a few inches longer than my longest rib and to push two dowel rods through both sides of the box for the ribs to rest on as a kind of rack to get steam all around them.    I had a hot plate to provide the heat and used the tea pot from our house, which I sanitized after each use then cut a 6 inch piece of pipe to connect the tea pot to the steam box.   The pipe was held in place by simply putting it in a bind between the two.  I was really amazed at how little steam escaped even though there wasn’t a tight fit between the pipe and the tea pot.  The end of the steam box was covered with a towel to keep as much steam and heat in as possible.

My first attempt was with some left over cherry and I carefully cut and shaped them and allowed them to soak for three weeks.  I broke everyone I tried to bend.  A little disheartened I called a friend that sells rough cut lumber.  I got two pieces of oak from him that had been cut only a few months ago so they were fairly green.  The problem, one I didn’t realize until much later, is that the wood was not straight grain.  I cut new ribs and let them soak for several weeks.  A buddy came over to help me steam bend the second batch.  We got all but four ribs bent into place.  Some of which had some splits that I glued back down.  The last four ribs were just downright a pain in the ass.

I think I made two more attempts two bend the last four ribs before calling my dad for desperate help, it all blends together now.  He suggested if I had enough wood left to split it by hand with an axe to ensure the grain was straight.  Having done Revolutionary War reenactments with my dad as a kid, implements of destruction like tomahawks are in no short supply in our family.  He brought over a hand forged tomahawk with a pull (flat section on the back) and a dead blow hammer, since neither of my tomahawks have a pull or the weight needed to do this safely.  I used the dead blow hammer to drive the tomahawk through the wood splitting it with the grain.  I split the pieces down until they were roughly a half inch thick then plained them smooth.  One thing I will warn anyone who is attempting this, a tomahawk should not be your first choice, they are sharp.  Using something that has a more blunt edge would be wiser if you’ve never done anything like this before.  I’ve been using a tomahawk since I was nine or ten years old so I’m fairly confident I won’t drive it into my leg.  I would also suggest long pants and boots if this is new to you not the shorts and sandals I wore.

The last four ribs soaked for three days and bent with ease, straight grain is the trick.  I do have to admit I sat down and drank a beer when the final rib went in.  This part took way to long, and I know that was due to my lack of experience bending wood.  If you attempt to make your own boat spend the money to buy straight grained piece of wood or do like I ended up doing, probably the most tradition way to make your ribs, spliting them by hand.

I was able to move ahead on several areas of the boat in the almost three months it took me to get the ribs done.  I should be writing about those in the near future to bring everything up to date.