Kirk Olsen wrote: > > On Tue, 4 Jan 2000, ralph diaz wrote: > > > The same with assembling a folding kayak. The tried n true method of > > making frame halves, inserting them into the skin and then doing > > elaborate extension of the halves through various apparati and methods > > in the middle. Nautiraid has rethought this asking why not make the > > boat frame entirely outside the skin where you can see and get at it all > > and have no resistance from the skin or frame tension. Then figure out > > a way to drop the finished frame into the skin and sealing it up. This > > basic method actually harkens back to an approach used in the early 20th > > Century to assemble some of the first folding kayaks. But the folding > > kayak field is ripe for change in materials as well as methods. > > There's been some discussion of this on the baidarka mailing list in the > past - for making a tandem folder. The solution I liked best was to > build the skin so that the frame was inserted into the skin like a foot > into a sock. The skin behind the cockpit was then lashed together (laced > like boots) with a velcro closure to keep the water out. > > I don't think that design was built but I liked it... > > kirk This is pretty much what Nautiraid is now doing. The back deck is zippered (2 overlapping zippers in the expedition models) with several over and under protective velcroed flaps. You open up the back deck and slip in the entire fully made frame into the bow area and drop the rear end of the frame in. It requires a bit of pushing down or even just stepping on the frame to get it down in. Then you insert a wedge piece into a slot in the stern to extend the stern end piece fully. Zip and flap off the back deck and you are ready. It takes a bit of a trick to do the flaps at the very stern so that they don't leak. As for the baidarka you mentioned with lacing closure, this method was used in the early 1900s on some models of folding kayaks. They had no velcro then and so several overlapping flaps formed the initial closure (to use the boot analogy...these formed an overlapping tongue) and on top of that you had two lacing flaps (boot analogy...like pulling together the eyelit sides of the boot). Surprising little water came in through that old method. ralph diaz -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ralph Diaz . . . Folding Kayaker newsletter PO Box 0754, New York, NY 10024 Tel: 212-724-5069; E-mail: rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com "Where's your sea kayak?"----"It's in the bag." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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