Chesapeake 17 Kayak - Laying out the bow and stern for the side panels - January 16, 2015

I have not posted anything in almost a week but I have still been active in Geiger's Boat Shop. When I last posted I had completed the panel blanks. Now I'm going to layout the patterns for the side and then the bottom panels and cut them out.

When you look at the pictures check out the blue chalk line I used to give myself a straight baseline to work from. On the plan there are a series of numbers at one foot intervals starting at the bow and working to the stern. These intervals are referred to as stations, the numbers associated with each station are the off sets. I use a square held on the chalk line and mark the appropriate spots on the blank panel. These points will be used to draw the shape of the panel. Once I had the stations with offsets marked I used the full size patters on the plan to outline and then draw the  shapes of the bow and stern

This is the bow pattern pinned on the plan. I used the pin holes as the points and connected the lines. Here is the pattern drawn on the blank.

Then I did the same thing with the stern. (If you don't know nautical terms, the bow is the front and the stern is the rear of the boat. If you are not talking about kayaks you can just remember the bow is the pointy end.)

Note how the pins are in the side panel and not the bottom panel.

Above the points are all connected in pencil.  You can see this is where the small piece was joined to the panel to give the proper length for this boat. That's all I did this evening.