: I am wanting to get into building a kayak. I own two kayaks, a Pungo and a
: Perception America. I'm wanting to build one myself, but don't know if I
: should buy a kit or just a set of plans.

: I am a very advanced woodworker, and I own my own cabinet shop. I have
: commercial woodworking machines at my disposal such as planers, jointers,
: shapers, belt sanders, etc. I realize there is a difference in building
: kitchen cabinets and wooden boatbuilding, so I am seeking advice.

: Thanks,

: John

Hey John, welcome aboard ! I'm a former cabinet maker and now......well, that's another story. :)

You are about as qualified as anyone here, and probably totally over qualified. About all you'll need out of your shop is a ROS, Cabinet scraper, and a lot of room. That's if you pick up a kit. But, since you have the equipment, you can do it all yourself. I'd go with the plans, as you can cut your own forms, mill your own strips, and you can no doubt pick up the material quite a bit cheaper than the kits. To take the forms off the plans, I bought a quilters wheel ( pattern cutter ). It's like a 3/4" pizza cutter, with teeth, and I used it to mark the wood for forms with dotted lines. That way leaving the plans in-tact. You probably have an overabundance of C-clamps, and spring clamps, which you will need. Check out some of the sites here and you'll see many forms of clamping and methods of going stapless. If you don't have any experience with glassing, you can get it all here. If you use your shop and are going to build the kayak in the shop as well, you will do good to build yourself a dust-free booth out of plastic when you are ready to glass. Anything and everything you need to know, you need only to ask and it will be forthcoming. Oh, as for the belt sander........you won't get much sympathy for it's use here. :) You're working with thin materials, on curved surfaces and it takes an eye and steady hand. The ROS is the tool of choice here for most of your sanding, as well as the fairing board.

Any boat you want to build, there are folks here who have built one, or paddled one and can help you with any situations you may run across.

It would help to pick up a couple of books for guidelines to work by, and Nick has a good one. There are others as well. On a personal note, where abouts do you hail from? I'm out California way, in about the dead center of the State. " Fresno " Good to hear from you and hope to hear more from you in he future. I doubt I can help you, as I haven't built a boat yet, and you know about all that I do about woodworking, and probably more as I have been away from it for 4 or 5 years.

I'd say you are about as ready as you can get so......Jump on in.

Rehd