Unwinding my kayak

This step was probably the step that has made me the most nervous so far; outside of the first time I used the epoxy. This step can best be described as "...making sure the boat is straight". Checking for twists, and then trying to remove them is where the term “winding” comes from. This needs to be done before we lock in the hull wiring and then use the epoxy to fill in the joints and seal the inside the boat. If I don’t do this right, it will be forever crooked as there is no way to straighten it once that step is completed.

The technique for doing this is to use your eyes sight it in. Roughly four feet from the bow and the stern, place these temporary boards across the shear clamps. This will allow you to check for twists across the kayak. Before starting this step, the sawhorses and table the kayak is resting on should be level. Next, stand in front of the kayak and look down the center. Move your head down until the back end board disappears behind the front one. Does the edge all along the line disappear behind the front one at exactly the same time? If not, we need to untwist the hull to remove it. For my kayak, I needed to do some untwisting, but not too much. My wife was able to help me in this step. We also used some clamps at the ends to help hold it during the “untwist” we did.

To vertical seam of the bow and stern should be 90 degrees to the cross pieces also. I checked this by using a plumb bob that I hung in front of the kayak. This step went well also. I did a little clamping and twisting here also and it came out pretty straight.

The final step is the “lock in”. This is where we do a final check of the panel joints to make sure we have a nice “V” shape, and the panels look good. When we are all set, we lock in the panels. Pushing all the wires down with a straight edge screwdriver keeps them in place and locks in the kayak's shape.