Tightening sinew while lashing and sewing can do some damage to your fingers and hands if they get rubbed too hard. While we usually get creative with athletic tape (once a rock climber, always a rock climber), we have recently recommended students bring a pair of fingerless gloves to save their hands. But most fingerless work […]
Back in the day, kayak builders used sharp stones and basic metal tools to cut driftwood for kayak frames. Needless to say, this would take awhile. We’ve modernized the process just enough to fit our workshops in 9 short days.Below is the list of hand-tools each participant is responsible for bringing. We have done our best to distill down […]
Choosing the right wood for your kayak or paddle is the single most important factor of the durability of your boat. Kiliii explains the mysteries of wood grain and what to watch out for. Hi folks, this is Kiliii Yuyan from Seawolf Kayak. Let’s talk today about choosing the right kind of wood to make a good […]
Once you bring your kayak home remember to feed and brush it twice a day, and make sure it has lots to chew on. Just kidding. That’s puppies! Your kayak, on the other hand, should be stored in a dry place, out of the sun. Here are a few more tips to make sure your SOF […]
Our workshops attract participants from all walks of life: enthusiastic woodworkers, semi-pro sea kayakers, traditionalists, and everything in between. Or sometimes, none of the above. Sometimes, people just need to get out from behind their desk, pick up a chisel, and get crafty. Last April, our friend Barney, over at the camera review site DPReview.com, got it […]
We finally got our newest prototype out on the water and it is… awesome! The Kelpie is a low-volume, narrow beam kayak designed for experienced paddlers. The speed and tracking on the water allow smaller paddlers to keep pace with the big guys. With a low freeboard and instant acceleration, you’ll forget when you end and the […]
The modern skin-on-frame kayak is a traditional ultralight craft. Half the weight but stronger than a fiberglass sea kayak. Modern hulls meet traditional build. Wood Selection and Cutting Starting from either logs or lumber, the red cedar is hand-picked (1 board per 10 chosen). Then it’s milled to tiny dimensions. Marking and cutting tenons Marking […]
After deciding which model to build, choosing a color is the most obvious way to personalize your kayak. It is also what people spend the most time agonizing over. From bright yellow to dark brown to light gray, the color options are seemingly endless and once pigment is added to the polyurethane, you are committed. This […]
One of our students from Canada, Alex Schiebel sent me some images of her Seawolf Stellar Sea Kayak, painted by a friend of hers, a NW Coast native artist named Beau! The painting is of a supernatural serpent vessel who carried a young boy around the world 4 times after he was resurrected from near-death. […]
Folks, our friend and bamboo supplier at NW Bamboo in Portland, Oregon, has put together a terrific deal on bamboo ply in kit form for skin-on-frame sea kayaks. This kit is milled to the Seawolf Kayak spec, and provides enough material for ribs and a coaming for a single 17′ boat, including enough to break […]
The first time you ever plunge a knife into the skin of your kayak, you wince. Eventually you’ll find it’s quite fun! Alas, despite how durable and tough skin-on-frame kayaks are, the time comes when you have to accept your fate and tear that old nylon skin off your boat. The process runs smoothly and […]
My friend Patrick Farneman armed me with a welder. So I decided to built a new kayak rack. Constructing a welded steel rooftop rack to haul 6 skin-on-frame kayaks around probably isn’t high on the priority list for many folks out there, but I hope that some ideas here will be helpful for the unending need […]
