Broken Islands Kayak Trip

When I built my new kayak, one of the design criteria was that it should be suitable for a week long camping trip. This of course means that at some point I would have to test this theory.
Rather than do this in a stages, I decided that a cannonball off the end of the dock would be more productive. So after a bunch of research and reading (checking the water depth before diving) I packed up my car with way too much stuff and headed out to Toquart Bay in Barkley Sound, BC.
The photo to the right shows the gear pile, most of which also functions as a flotation device in case I flood my kayak.

This is the view of Lyall Point from the exit of the channel between the Stopper Islands. Beyond Lyall, you can see the distant island straight ahead, Hand Island, my first destination. I should mention that short of a brief paddle in Vancouver when I was a kid, this is my first time in a kayak on the ocean. Nothing like starting slow.
The crossing was good though, pretty smooth water but its odd when you get out into the swell, and your kayak goes up and down by a meter or more.

This is the view from Dodd Island, across Peacock Channel to the Brabants and Hand Island.
This last leg on the first day proved to be somewhat ill advised. The winds were calm when I started, but picked up fast as I made my way across, before long I was bucking big whitecaps with some slight swell underneath. Wave size is of course hard to judge in a kayak, but they were big enough to cause me to question the wisdom of my choices. To top off the fun, the waves were perpendicular to my planned course, so I ended up adjusting and heading out to the far tip of the island so I could take the waves three quarter on my bow. Turns out though that a fully loaded Aleut kayak is a bloody stable thing, and the only time I felt somewhat nervous was making the turn once I got to the island, so I could surf back down wind to the harbor entrance. I don't have any pictures of any adventurous water, I didn't want to drop my paddle to take photos as I needed to use the blade to brace the kayak and stay upright.


One thing I have to say about the Broken Group, the sunsets are absolutely amazing, this is Dodd island. Made the first days paddle all worth it.
The nice thing about Dodd is that there are lots of guided groups, while on the surface this may sound like a problem, it is important to note that guided groups always have left over food, and its good. I got cake.

I stuck around Dodd for a couple nights, to rest and relax. Did some paddling around but kept to sheltered waters, I was a little shy after getting hit by the wind on my first day. On day three I struck out to move camp to Gibraltar Island, which is located in the more sheltered inner islands. This is an island along the way, unnamed but located near Elbow Rocks.

Midway between Mullins and Dempster Island I found a group of Sea Lions on a rock. I kept a fair distance away so as not to disturb them, but they barked at me regardless and took to the water.

The lagoon between Jaques and Jarvis. Pretty at high tide, but amazing at low tide.

The Treble Islands. Most places in the Broken Group consist of little clumps of islands, with sheltered water in between. There are a few major channels though, which tend to get a little choppy.

View from Gibraltar island campsite. This was a group of kayakers I met the night previous departing. Everyone in the islands is super friendly, you could come with a weeks food and stay for months just on the leftovers of departing kayakers who don't want to lug things home.

Rock near Nettle Island, this one had a mink on it that was fishing for crab.

This is in a narrow channel between Denne and Nettle islands. Once you enter it all you hear is the sounds of birds, specifically the Hermit Thrush, they are on all the islands and have the most beautiful call.

One of the Treble Islands up close. There are little nooks and crannies on near every island, just countless places to explore. This one had a small sand beach at low tide that was covered with mussels and snails.

Between Jaques and Jarvis is a little lagoon, the north west corner of which has a small channel, which at low tide is like paddling through an aquarium. You look down off your boat and there are countless creatures, starfish, bat stars, snails and crabs, and lots of these freaky things, sea cucumbers. Now picture being an naive prairie kid and something like this appearing out of the mirk right below your kayak, I half expected it to leap up and start clawing my face off, and it took me a while to work up the courage to stick my hand in the water to take a few pictures.

Continuing the theme of wacky creatures from the shallow, this is a moon snail. The picture doesn't quite do it justice, you have to see this guy in person, the shell is 4 inches across, and the foot is the size of a dinner plate.

The forest on Gibraltar. Once you get off the water, the islands haven't really been logged, so there are lots of neat woods, no official trails though, so the walking is fun.
I also had this Island all to myself on my fourth night. Its funny how a lot of people told me that it would take five days to get really comfortable, and its totally true, I had all my systems in place, and living was easy so I could just truly enjoy where I was. All my lifes worries faded away and I just was. As someone I met later put it "...you just become part of the tides". Interesting experience, solo wilderness travel is highly recommended.

As a bit of a pastime while out on the islands I carved driftwood, usually into these little watcher figurines which I used to keep an eye on my tent and boat. A lot of these got sent off with various people as presents or thank yous for donated treats. There are tons of pieces of old growth cedar just washed up on the beaches.

Hand Island, around sunset. I think Hand was my favorite island, beautiful white sandy beaches, lots of trails, great tide pools, and people coming and going, and not many staying.

View to the Brabants, if you get out early in the day you can avoid the wind, and its just flat calm out there.

Brabant islands, looking north to hand and the main body of Vancouver Island.

Sea Anemone in a tide pool on Hand Island.

The beach on Hand Island, you can see my campsite in the centre of frame. Rough life, I even had a wooden dinner table with a bench seat.

More hand Island Beach, looking towards Lyall Point, I had this beach all to myself on my last night, great morning and evening sun.

This little spot was just past the Stopper Islands. Looking out at the open ocean, other than the few small islands there isn't a whole lot of land between here and Japan. Something I was cognizant of as I made the open crossing from Hand. You definitely have to trust yourself and your gear, and realize that your survival is up to you alone. Though really, if I got into a real spot I had flares on me, and I was wearing a dry suit, with lots of insulation underneath, so I could just hang out till help arrived.

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Strangely this isn't photoshoped, this is looking across David Channel towards the Mountains. Absolutely amazing scenery, and in the right light you dont see the clearcuts.

Back at civilization, cant say I was overly happy about it, but I met some nice people from Comox who offered me tea and some good conversation. Good way to ease back in.

The kayak, it survived intact and happy, though I now have a lot of sand and grit inside, so I don't think the skin is going to last long, we shall see.
All in all though, I love this boat, the hatches worked like a dream, I could pile a TON of gear inside: 32 litres of water, way too much food for a week, full repair and first aid kits, a spare hammock tent, in addition to a full camping kit and some luxury items like 6 cans of tonic so I could sip G&T's on the beach. She was comfortable through the long days, and took the waves with aplomb, no fuss or anything.
The Aluet paddle is fantastic, tons of support when things are rough, comfy to hold, and motivates the kayak smartly, even when its loaded down. I cant see switching back, except for rivers.

Skin on Frame Hatches

Here are some details of the hatch setup I put in my new kayak. Its my own design, and man was there a lot of futzing while I figured things out.

This first shot shows the frame assembly, its basically two glue-lam rings that nest. I just cut out a couple ovals out of MDF and wrapped it with 2mm spruce strips. The inner ring has a few extra strips added to make a large flange on top, as well as a thick center stringer on the off chance that my split deck stringers fail and the hatch gets subjected to compression force. Dimensions are 8x10" for the opening. I tapered the inner ring so it would locate easier into the outer. The extra line of holes was from an early plan to fully wrap the hatch with fabric, which would have messed with the clearance.

Sewing the hatch, the first attempt I wrapped the fabric over the ring, and down the hole, it resulted in some serious clearance issues, so here I am just saddle stitching it to the side of the ring. Later it will be trimmed, rolled over, and whip stitched.

I covered the hatch with the same skin as the hull, you get some wrinkles on the underside of the flange, but it doesn't matter as they will be hidden by the gasket.

I trimmed the fabric on the hatch flush with the inner corner. You have to watch out for any large ripples as they may affect the clearance with the inner ring. I ended up using a soldering iron to melt down a few lumps that got in the way.

This is the finished hatch in its open state. The gasket material is EPDM rubber weatherstripping(the same stuff as car door seals). I put one strip on the hatch, and a second on the rim just for extra water tightness. I first tried closed cell foam weatherstripping, but found it took too much force to compress and didn't give a satisfactory seal, it also made the hatch look like an inverse Oreo. You can also see that I put on a latigo idiot strap so I wont lose my hatch at the beach.

And the hatch closed and secured. I used two latigo strap loops, one on each side, each has a slider, and one has a toggle. Its set up so that you can just barely loop the strap over the toggle. If you make it too loose the hatch wont seal properly. If you make it tight, you can pick the boat up by the hatch and it wont move at all. If I was doing it again I would make the toggle overhang a little less.

Launch of the New kayak

Took the complete new kayak out for a quick spin in Lake Okanagan. I am pretty happy with the performance, nice and stable, tons of room inside. I notice it takes more effort to paddle than my 14' boat, probably just because of the increased hull friction, or I messed up the shape. Its not too bad though. I need to redo the hatches some, with the current system I am using a closed cell foam gasket and it takes too much force to cinch it tight.
The decklines are made of latigo, with walnut sliders, and mystery hardwood balls to keep the lines off the deck so I can grab them easier.

Completed Frame and Saran Test

Got the frame of my new Aleut Baidarka done, and I am pretty happy with it. Took it out for its maiden voyage on an seasonably chilly April day, though just with a cling wrap skin.

Dimensions are 16.5' long, 21" beam, 14.5" deep from bottom of keel stringer to top of cockpit at masik. Materials are:

• Lumberyard spruce for the gunwales, deck and keel stringers (I scored an awesome beat up 2x10x14' that was nasty in the middle but perfect on the edges)
  
• Willow and dogwood ribs
• Sitka spruce bow and stern assemblies
• Pine hull stringers (Thanks Don!)
• Red cedar floorboards
  
• Glue-lam deck beams, coaming, and hatches. (made of fir, spruce and pine. Stuck together with PL Premium
  

The deck beams are all mortise and tenon, I found it gives more lateral flex in the gunwales. The hatches are added in by cutting the deck stringer, putting in two bridge stringers to take the force and support the hatch, and adding a round coaming and a plug hatch.
Oh and the gap in the floorboards is so I can drop a bilge pump beside the keel stringer.

Bow Valley and Balance Stools.

How time flies in the mountains. Its a rough life, the shot to the right was taken on a little lump of rock on the shoulder of Sulphur Mountain, just a short walk from town. You can see the river where I spent my summer on the right side of the frame, the pond on the other side of the trees is the Sundance Canyon Marsh.

I have started work on my next kayak, its going to be another Aleutian Baidarka. Same basic design as my last one, but this version is going to have some improvements. I am lengthening it by about three feet, bringing it more in line with the originals. I am going to be adding hatches, full deck lines, and a lot more safety features than my last boat. Pictures of the progress to come soon.

I have also been working on a blog for my friend Don Gardner, got a bunch of pictures scanned and uploaded of his previous work; canoes, kayaks, bows, atlatls, even a birchbark mini skirt. Its still under construction, but have a look.


I also made up a quick and simple Greenland Balance stool, so I can keep my core in quasi okay shape until the rivers thaw. Basic idea is to take a couple 12" long 2x6s cut a rocker in the bottom with about 1.5" of rise, slap a 2x4 on top to join the two, and rig up a seat and a foot rest. I felt fancy so I cut a slot for the 2x4 so it sat flush with the top. Only downside to that was that it dropped the seat by an inch and a half, so its a little on the easy side right now. I plan to plane the rockers down some to increase the degree of difficulty.

Underwater Camera

Just for fun I decided to bodge together my own underwater camera rig, so I bought a couple of waterproof Pelican cases, an Asus EEE PC netbook, and recycled the webcam I have been using for time lapse videos. After futzing with Linux, I got the camera and the computer talking, and strapped the camera to the side of my boat.
This is what Echo Creek in Banff looks like from the underside of my kayak.



And this is why when one is trying out an underwater camera, one should be aware of the surroundings, and any large snags that might be in the path of the boat or camera.

Lantern Boat

After looking at how well the sun shone through the skin of my kayak, I got to figuring that the same thing would work in reverse at night. So I placed a couple LED lanterns inside the boat, fore and aft of the cockpit, then took it out on the Bow River after sunset. The effect was quite interesting, a nice soft glow that didn't cast any glare, so I could still see the stars above. Also it fortunately didn't seem to attract as many insects as I would have thought. I think for next time I need more lights, and also need to place them further down the hull.

More Kayak Photos

Thought I should post some more shots of my finished kayak.

This is the view from the inside looking forward, those of you who have done too much study on kayaks may notice that the ribs have a slightly different profile than standard, I flattened and widened the bottom section, and made the curve up more abrupt. This was to increase the stability of the boat, and give me more cargo space inside.

And the view to the stern. One thing I have been noticing that I thought was interesting, is that despite the increase stability I can still lean the boat easily to one side or the other with my hips, and essentially park it over with the cockpit almost in the water, yet it stays comfortably there.

Shot of the cockpit, and rear deck line. I decided to just install the aft deck line at first, use it for a while, and figure out what works best before installing the fore-deck line. I am using carved yellow cedar for my toggles. I have to say that wow is it a great system, simply slide the toggles to the centre to slacken the lines, slide them to the gunwales to tighten them up. They hold well enough to attach a paddle as an outrigger, and thus avoid some drenchings whilst getting in and out of the boat. Which I suppose is another plus for having a flat rear deck.

Shot of the boat in sun. One thing thats important to note for anyone building one of these with similar materials, every hole, or mark, or dowel thats in the gunwale shows up through the finished skin. Had I realized this I might have tried to make more aesthetic decisions on where to place certain things

Launch

Just put the boat on the water for its first paddle. I decided that it needed somewhere scenic, and somewhere with water that was somewhat shallow just in case. The place chosen was the second Vermilion Lake in Banff, which clocks in on the depth-o-meter at about 1-2ft.

I rounded up about 10 people from the Centre, and my Father and Girlfriend from Calgary, and headed down in the evening. I named the boat Carina in a small ceremony, toasted it with ginger ale, and hopped in.

The initial impressions on the boat are great, plenty of secondary stability, and just enough primary stability to avoid feeling alarming. Seems to handle well, enough rocker so you can spin it within its own length, and yet still tracks well and glides beautifully.
Once thing I have noticed is that the weight balance seems to be a bit aft, so the bow section tends to rise up out of the water, especially when I paddle it hard. I think I am going to just get in the habit of shoving gear in the front to balance it out.

Final weight on the boat came it at a hair over 35 pounds, with the balance point sitting right under the front cockpit deck beam. You can pick the boat up like a briefcase with one hand and it stays level. I don't think I could do that again deliberately, but if one could its a really nice feature.

After paddling around by myself for a bit I let a few of the spectators take the boat out for a spin, everyone seemed to really enjoy it, and it was a good test on how stable the boat was, especially with people who haven't kayaked very much in the past. No one got wet, so I guess the boat passed the test.

Oh, and the ever important shot of yes it sits and stays on the car, which is actually kind of a hard thing when the rear deck is lower than the front, and the front is heavily peaked. I stick it with the roof rack right on the forward deck beam, and right under the cockpit rim bracing.

Thanks to my Father, Bruce, for taking all the photos.

Skinning the boat

Got the skin on and finalized. Found out it sews pretty easily, I used the skinboats.org method, where I sewed a bit of the bow on, took it off and sewed the stern about 4 inches too short, and stood on the boat to pull it on. It seemed to tension the hull nicely and made it pretty easy to do the sewing down the deck.
The method for the deck was to do a running stitch first, putting the needle in about half inch from where they come together when tight, then using that inch to let you draw up that last bit of slack.I found that starting from the centre and working towards the ends is a great concept, as by the time you get to the tips the fabric is pretty much on its bias so it stretches easily.

One important note, the stern is harder than the bow, which seems counter intuitive but those last two darts to pull the fabric in were painful.

Once I had the running stitch down the hull I then trimmed the fabric with a hot knife to 3/4", and rolled the ends under, holding them in with a final X stitch down all seams. A curved upholstery needle makes this process much less painful.

I decided to go fancy and actually wrap the fabric along the side of the cockpit, over the top and down the inside, as opposed to the Greenland style floating cockpit. I liked the solidity of the rigidly braced cockpit rim for car topping and entrys off the rear deck. It turns out to not be as scary a process as I thought, just drill the holes in the rim and use a thick thread to pull the skin in tight to it. The nylon stretches enough that it pulls through without a wrinkle, the only hard part was pulling the inside cut edge up and over to form my rolled seam, I ended up having to use a few clamps to hold it up as I sewed it. Oh, and of course the fun part was trying to remember where all the holes were drilled and find then with the needle. Flashlights help.

After that it was drum tight, but to get rid of some awkward wrinkles on the bow, stern, and cockpit I simply wet the skin and cooked the water off with a heat gun. So if you are building your own, don't panic about the large overlapping wrinkle that doesn't go away how much you pull it tighter, it will all work out. Oh, and about the warnings you read about the drips of water staining your hull, they aren't kidding. It doesn't show up until the polyurethane. If I was doing it again and I had drips I would probably try to wet the whole hull evenly.

Talisman

Every boat needs a talisman, heres the little blind helmsman I installed just in front of the stern fin. He is carved out of yellow cedar, and then coated with a mixture of linseed oil, beeswax and red iron oxide. The oxide is a bit of a homage to the traditional Aleut kayaks, which had their whole frames painted with it.

Saran Wrap and Weigh In

Took the boat out for a preliminary spin in the river tonight before I started putting on the final skin. To test it I wrapped the whole thing with plastic wrap about 4 layers thick, and then cut a hole through the cockpit so I could sit in it. The people at the pool didn't want me testing it there so I took it out to the Bow River, where I had a small audience of people by the canoe docks.
After popping it in the water, and struggling into the cockpit (note to self for the future, my legs are long). I discovered that the boat handles great, tons of stability and I can still lean it all the way over so the cockpit is just about in the water and it stays nice and stable, seems pretty fast too, even with the saran wrap scooping up water as I went. I had about 3 or four minutes before it started to fill up alarmingly with water.
Found out on the exit that the cockpit is way tighter than my last boat, couldn't get my leg out and ended up rolling it over right next to the shore, I got wet, people clapped, then I had to cut a large slit in the bow to let all the water out. I think once I get my deck lines on I can rig up a paddle brace for getting in and out since I have to sit on the back deck to make it happen.
Also managed to weigh the frame, it came it at right around 30lbs, so I am pretty happy.

Aleut Kayak - Frame

So I got the frame finalized for my new Kayak. This project was started last year, though all I got done was drilling the gunwales for the ribs. Now that I am at the Banff Centre I realized that I now have access to a full woodshop, which is a nice improvement over hand tools and a drill press.

I got the idea to build the Kayak from my friend Don Garder, he was looking at my Porcupine sculpture and commenting on how much it was built like a Kayak. I started doing a bunch of research, reading books at the Glenbow, and looking through a lot of websites, a bunch of which I am including at the bottom of this post. The plans I got from Wolfgang Brinck's page, where he has some loose drawings of a 14' baidarka that intrigued me.

The materials used are regular mystery spruce for the gunwales (pulled out of a lumberyard as a 16 foot 2x4 after 3 hours of searching) and deck beams. Willow for the ribs (gathered from a swamp, I am making a note to wear rubber boots next time). Fir for the keel stringer and hull stringers. And a really nice hunk of sitka spruce for the bow and stern blocks that was probably originally destined for a life as a guitar. The whole thing is lashed together with 90# polyester sail-makers twine, which I was able to order from a nice local yacht shop. The cockpit rim was laminated from strips of fir using an obscene amount of pl premium construction adhesive.

The whole thing went together fairly smoothly, that is once I finally understood that I was building my first boat, and that I was going to make a lot of mistakes, but that those mistakes were okay. Its a bit of a letting go process for someone trained as a Jeweller, where you meticulously plan everything before starting.

Useful sites:
Kayak Building Bulletin Board - Tons of posts and a huge archive of almost every problem that comes up.
Greenland Kayaking Forum - The name says it all
Baidarka Mailing List - Now defunct, the traffic has gone to the kayak building board, but still maintained as an archive.
Artic Kayaks - David Zimmerly's page, has some great historical photographs and lines of museum kayaks.
Traditional Kayaks - Harvey Golden's page, has a large selection of photographs of various replicas he has built.
Yostworks - Information on various folding kayak designs
Skinboats - The company where I ordered my skin and urethane from, has tons of helpful video tutorials on sewing and coating.

Calgary To Baldy.

Whoa, where have the last few months gone. I have been keeping busy out at the Banff Centre for the Arts where I got a work study position till the end of September. I thought I might put up this video that I took just before Christmas of my trip down to my uncles cabin in BC. More info after the video.



A trip of ~750 kms, roughly 9 hours of driving, presented as a 30 minute timelapse. My trip went through through Banff National park, The Kicking Horse and Rogers Pass, then down through the Okanogan Valley to Oliver, where I turn off and head up Mt Baldy to my uncles cabin. The approximate route map is here. Oh, and in case you are curious as to where you are, heres a list of times that should help you out.

* Canmore (3:37)
* Banff Park Gates (3:49)
* Banff (4:14)
* Lake Louise (6:05)
* Field (7:00)
* Golden (8:57)
* Rogers Pass Snowsheds (12:25 & 13:25)
* Revelstoke (14:56)
* Sicamous (18:03)
* Grindrod (19:05)
* Vernon (20:48)
* Kelowna (22:26)
* The Kelowna Bridge (23:15)
* Westbank (23:45)
* Peachland (24:42)
* Summerland (25:24)
* Penticton (25:54)
* Okanagan Falls (26:38)
* Oliver (27:27)

Banff and Back

This is a time lapse I did of a drive from Calgary to Banff, and back. I had to go out there for an interview at the Banff Centre, so I thought I should get a project out of it too. The set up is a webcam mounted to my rear-view mirror taking shots every second and saving them to a laptop. I ended up with 11,500 frames total, about 1.8 gigs of raw data since the originals are 1600x1200. I used VirtualDub to stitch them all together.



Oh, and the interview went well, I start in January doing a studio work study. Some things are just worth the drive.

Wearing the Wings

Finally got around to finishing the leather harness for my wings, which now means I can wear them and run around scaring the neighbors.
Heres a video of them in action:

Cedar Kite

I have been doing some research trips to the Bow with a larger carved cedar river kite. The design for this one is a large pontoon boat, about two feet wide and a foot and a half long. It was designed to be heavy enough to avoid flipping over sideways in strong current. One thing that I originally thought was a problem is that it has a tendency to flip end over end if you don't control it right. Turns out that when its upside down you can right the kite by yarding quite hard on the upstream control line, thus pulling the entire kite under water where it then flips itself back up. The following video might make things a little clearer.

Goosetoph - The surfing goose.

Photo by Janet Mader

To the right you can see the latest incarnation of the river kite theme, a surfing goose. Goosetoph, as he has become known, began life as a hunting decoy, destined to float in a pond luring his brethren to buckshot. Now he has a higher calling, surfing on standing waves in the Bow River in Calgary.
You can make your own version by following these steps.

1: Obtain a hunting decoy. My favorite are the large Canada Geese with what they call a water keel. What you are looking for is a large fin of plastic on its bottom end. Make sure the fin is sturdy, some are just too floppy to work. (See the pictures at the bottom of this post)

2: Drill two holes in the keel in the spots indicated. Basically just at the front and back of the fin.

3: Attach a long length of stout cord to the goose by knotting each end to the fin. The cord needs to be fairly thin and strong, parachute cord works, I use spectra kite boarding line, spectra fishing line should also work.

4: Surf your waterfowl. You need a section of the river with fairly high speed water. The toughest part is the launch as eddies form near the shore, a stout stick is usually sufficient to push the goose into the main current. Once there, experiment with pulling on the control lines to steer the goose back and forth, much like a stunt kite. The basic idea is to angle the fin relative to the current in the direction you want the goose to go. See the video in my previous post for what it should look like in action.

Be extremely careful as the current can be quite strong, make sure you are on stable footing and wont be dragged into the river. If you feel like you might fall in, just let go of the rope. I would advise against letting children operate the goose on fast water.

5: Take pictures and send them to me - I would love to see what you come up with and post it on my blog.

River Kite Whitewater Test

This project I am calling a river kite, it is essentially a two line stunt kite that flies in water, not air. The general principle of this is to place a board in a river, now by changing the angle of attack of the board relative to the water flow you can cause the board to sweep up or down stream. Floats are used to keep the board in the right orientation and control lines are affixed to the bow and stern. The goal of this piece is to create an object that facilitates exploration of a river through tactility. Its also just a lot of fun to play with.

Here is a short video showing an early prototype surfing in some whitewater on the Bow River here in Calgary.



The back story to this piece is that I spent quite a few summer days last year paddling down the bow river, playing in the eddies and current. From this experience I literally had a dream about a boat that could use the force of the river to float upstream. During a recent trip to BC I found myself camping next to a suitable river, so I spent a few hours whittling my idea from some scrap cedar, the result wasn't pretty but it proved the concept.
Further research taught me that the idea is not entirely novel, a similar rig is used for fishing in Sweeden as well as the otter boards on trawlers and mine sweepers. Oddly enough when I was purchasing some spectra line for this project from an absolutely fantastic kite equipment supplier in Airdrie I was informed about another gentleman who has applied the same principle for swift water rescue.

Blockwatch - periscope surveillance system

This is a piece that I just finished for a show which is open again on October 13th and 14th from 2-5 pm. Location.Seven artists were invited to create site specific pieces for a suburban backyard. This particular yard had a very bunker like quality so I decided that my contribution would be a 20 foot tall wooden pan/tilt periscope. The scope works remarkably well at spying on her neighbors, who fortunately found the whole thing rather amusing. I think the warning signs that I posted around the neighborhood helped.

Here is a short video showing the scope, spying on random people walking down the lane, looking at the view, and also some detail shots showing the mechanism.



These are some further shots showing the full tower and mechanism details. The construction was pretty simple, 8 pieces of 1.5" fir dowel were used to create the upright risers. These were reinforced with cross rungs that were bolted to them. The tower is constructed in two 10' sections that are slid together over pipes in the middle, this was to make it easier to transport. The tower is stayed using 1/4" rope that is anchored to tent pegs in the ground, this arrangement reinforces the tower greatly.
As for the mechanism it can be divided into two main parts, the pan which allows the top mirror to rotate through 360 degrees, and the tilt which allows the mirror angle to be adjusted.
The pan component consists of a lower pulley with handle that is attached via an endless rope to the top, where there is a lazy susan with rope guides. Spinning the handle spins the lazy susan. The rope is kept in place with a series of eyelets.
The tilt mechanism is a little more complex, the mirror is pivoted in the center on a copper tube, at one end of the mirror are springs which keep tension on the cord, on the other is the cord itself. Pull the cord and the mirror tilts. Complicating this is the fact that mirror can spin fully round. I wanted the tilt to remain independent and unchanging from the spin so I had to run the cord through a guide that sits in the centre of rotation. This guide is relatively invisible in practice because it is located so far back from the focal plane. The tilt is controlled at the bottom with a simple wooden lever.

And these are some of the views that were discovered. The yard sits on an a fair slope, with the back alley 5 feet higher than the grade of the yard. Between this, the retaining walls, the fences and trees one doesn't normally get much of a view from this place. With a 20 foot tower thats taller than the house.. well you can see the mountains and a lot more. Oh and if you are wondering why some of the shots appear to be oriented incorrectly, it was one of the interesting optical quirks of the piece. When you have two mirrors acting as a periscope the view will appear to be right side up when the tower is viewing forward relative to the viewer, but upside down when looking backwards.

Photos of Final[ish] Wings

Well the wings are finally done.. well, I mean done in the sense of now they go to the costumer to get the rest of the harness and costume figured out. But the main woodwork is done so I can revel in my small victory.
As for the damage count, the final piece ended being made of 206 separate pieces of wood: 32 parts in the centre chassis, 72 parts in each wing, 30 pivot pins [which further have 60 toothpick pieces as retainer pins that I am not counting]. All these components required over 800 feet of waxed sailmakers twine that was hand lashed to every part.
Since my last update I have added in a centre spine piece that will serve to keep the wings from pinching the wearers back [I think I still have the bruises from before], as well as an attachment points for the harness straps [made somewhat more difficult by my lack of knowledge of what the costume/harness are going to look like].
As is my habit, before anything leaves my shop I make sure to take a bunch of photos, but nice ones this time instead of the usual cheap and cheerful. To get better results I clear out the garage, and hang a seamless paper backdrop from my ceiling, or more accurately its jury rigged off of the hooks holding up my kayak and ladder. Lighting is just a single wireless flash strobe with a round defuser, sitting on top of whatever happens to be the right height. Oh and that high tech device holding the end of the background in place.. yup its a rock.

Wings Video

Kinetic sculpture always makes more sense when, you know, its in motion. So heres a quick stop motion video showing the movement of the wings. To give you an idea of size its about 9.5' [2.9m] wide when open, and about 2' [0.6m] wide when closed.

To open the wings. the slider [the part in the middle that sits on the centre shaft] moves upwards causing the linkage to spread. The movement is carried outwards by a series of levers. Only the outside feather is rigidly connected to the mechanism, the others are attached with lengths of cord to it and are pulled out when the cord goes taught.

Finishing and Fire

I just put on a couple coats of linseed oil/beeswax finish on my pieces, gives them a nice warmth and protects the surface. After its applied the pieces got hung up to dry, which did give me an opportunity to see just how many pieces go into this thing (incidentally 35 separate assemblies, made up of a whole shwack of smaller parts).
The only downside to this process, linseed oil can spontaneously combust, which would probably be far too entertaining in a shop filled with tubs upon tubs of dry wood shavings and stacks of dry lumber. The solution, why a prescribed burn of course. It is rather scary the amount and duration of flame you get off some oily paper towels.

Chassis

I just finished construction on the chassis for the wings, its all made out of steam bent and carved yellow cedar. I have attached some photos that showing the layout, sawing and carving of the parts.

Steam Bending

I decided that the chassis of my wings needed some curved components. I considered making these with some home made glulam components, but ultimately chose to steam bend the parts.
Having never done this before, I started by knocking together a crude steam box out of some scrap pine. This box is enhanced with a plug on one end, a candy thermometer, a hinged door with a magnetic clasp n the other, and a series of copper wires inside to keep the pieces off the floor of the box. There is a copper pipe sticking out the bottom which is hooked up to an old kettle sitting on a hotplate. I find I can get about 2.5 hours of steam out of the kettle so it works well for me.
I made this setup originally thinking that it was just going to be temporary because I was unsure as to the odds of success, but as it turns out it works just fine, although the box has corkscrewed itself about 2 inches of twist, I think next time I am going to be looking for exterior plywood.
The first step in the process is to first soak the parts for 24 hours in a tub of water, I tried to omit this step and found the the results were mixed to put it mildly.
The steam box is preheated before the parts go in, from looking at the gauge it seems to top out at 95°C which I suppose is partly due to the altitude here. Once it is up to tempature I toss the parst in and steam them for 15-20 minutes depending on thickness.
Once steamed the parts are bent by hand for greater control of the bending, however I find that I burst way too many capillaries in my thumbs doing this. Then they are placed on a peg board so they don't spring back as they cool.

Test Fitting

I had an itching to see what the wings looked like on a person so I jury rigged a quick harness out of rope and walked over to the park. I had Janet take some photos of me looking all triumphant.

Feathers Attached

Finally got the feathers assembled to the wings. Turns out my original design spec of 8' wing span was slightly conservative, they have now enlarged to have a wingspan of 9'4". This of course makes them rather fun to maneuver whilst open.

The Making of the Feathers Part 2

Once I had all the yellow cedar terminals carved for the feather pieces I then had to plane and cut the red cedar spars. Everything was then tied together to form the final feathers.

The Making of the Feathers Part 1

Having got the main segments complete I now had to construct the feathers, this was somewhat complicated by the fact that there were 12 of these, and that each had to be constructed of at least 5 pieces (7 for the two end feathers) so 64 pieces in total. As for why I did it this way, well anything less just didn't feel right. To give you a sample of my workflow Here are the steps that go into making feathers.

Step 1: I started with a big block of yellow cedar and drilled through the entire thing twice.
Step 2: The block was rough shaped with chisels to establish the general curve of all the pieces.
Step 3: The block was split in half lengthwise using a knife. The fun thing about wood grain is that when you learn where the cleavage planes are it splits very easily and predictably, thus allowing you to save hours of sawing.
Step 4: So predictably in fact that splitting 14 separate pieces out of the block goes very very fast.
Step 5: The parts are then carved with a knife into their final shape.

Main Segments Complete

I finally got the main wing structure put together. This of course means that I only have all 12 feathers, the feather control rods, the chassis, the backpack assembly, the main control rods, and the main slider left to build. Hey almost there.

Carving and Tying

Work on the wings is proceeding, albeit slowly, its the fun of balancing a day job and an art practice. These are a couple of shots showing the tying together of a centre spreader, and the carving of an end joint.

Layout

The one downside I am realizing now, is that by constructing everything multi-part, I am going to end up with a lot of pieces.
This is an image of my current layout, most of the yellow cedar inside bits have been cut and carved, and I made a very large stack of red cedar spars. I am using coroplast and pins as a general layout aid, accuracy is important because the levers will magnify any error 10 fold.

Construction of First Segment

To improve the look of the wings I have decided to add some complications to the design. The most major of these is going to be turning every spar on my test model into a rather complex multi-part segment. These will be constructed of red cedar spars, and yellow cedar spreaders. The red cedar I was fortunate enough to source from a local boat builder named Don Gardner, who had it left over after building a 26' birch bark canoe for the Glenbow Museum. The spars are made by hammering a knife into the end of the thicker wood and splitting down till I get the size I need. This ensures that the grain runs straight and helps reduce breakage. Once cut, the spars and the spreaders are assembled by hand using sailmakers twine.

First Concept Model of Wings

I have been commissioned to build a set of wings for a theatrical performance. The plan currently is to build them out of wood and make them so that they can be strapped to the performers back. I am going to shoot for something in the size range of a 2' wide system when closed, opening up to ~8' when open.

The photos that are attached are of a half scale mechanical test model that was constructed in an evening. The materials are wood dowels and toothpicks for the hinges. The system that I have chosen for these wings is a simple chain of levers to activate all the component parts.

The goal of this project is to construct a rather complex set of mechanical wings almost entirely out of hand carved western cedar.