Mad Dog's SK14

[Mad Dog]

Greetings everyone. It has been about ten years since I have been active on the site. That's ten years of work, work, work... getting my three girls through high school and college (one married), a little bit of fishing (but never enough). Of course, our share of normal family drama. All this leading up to an empty nest and retirement (FINALLY, praise the Lord) .

With that I have decided to add an SK14 to my arsenal in pursue of shallow water monsters. I have been using a kayak to that end for several years now but needed to upgrade to a more stable platform with propulsion. Instead of spending an equivalent amount of cash on a plastic craft I decided an SK14 would suit me better plus get me a builder's badge.

The supplies have arrived, and building is about to begin. My intention is to build to the plan and since I am now RETIRED this should go fairly quickly. I will post pictures once I figure out the process.

Looking forward to getting started!

[Buz]

I look forward to following your build. I'm sorta in the same phase of life as you. I'd considered building an SK, but decided I wanna be able to take on a passenger so that plan didn't work for me, but it sure is tempting.

I think there are more eyes on these build threads than there are mouths, so please post up. I hope we can both figure out how to post our pictures.

[Dougster]

Hey MadDog, good to hear you're still at it. You may know I built the SK14 to design. I love it and was taking it to to Canyon lake for little 2 hour trips often enough 'till the lake got so low they closed my favorite ramp. I have a 5hp Tohatsu propane on the back that pushes her 10 or 12 mph and a 55lb Minn Kota spot lock trolling motor on the nose. I took Shirley out on it once, sitting in front of the grab bar and had no trouble. Calm day of course (Inks Lake).

Once, by myself a boat mushed right by me on semi-plane and sent a big wake swell right over the nose. It was no problem, the water rushed right by and out the stern in moments, leaving me irritated, with wet feet but nothing else. It's a fine little design. I put it on a trailer from Walmart or somewhere around her. McClain trailer, works fine after I raised the tail lights so they wouldn't immerse.

Dougster

[Mad Dog]

Hey Doug, good to hear from you. I have a question about the trolling motor. Did you do anything to beef up the deck to support the mount?

[Dougster]

You know I can't remember, but I think I put a half inch or so piece of ply as a butt block underneath. I'll check later.

Dougster

[Mad Dog]

Good evening. This is a general question, is there a tutorial on how to post pics from the Coppermine Gallery? I have managed to upload images there but now I am not having any luck link those into the Builder's Forum.

In my rebuild thread I used Photobucket which worked fine until they suspended the hosting feature. I have sworn off of Photobucket.

[Mad Dog]

[pee wee]

I think there are at least a couple ways to do it, and there is at least one thread detailing the how to. What I did was go to your link and right click the photo, copied image address, came back to this reply window and pasted the address, highlighted it and clicked the image button in the tool bar above- it is a rectangle with some mountains and a sun (or is it moon?) in the sky.

[Mad Dog]

Thank you Pee Wee! Your tips helped a lot.

So, this is how the CNC package arrived. It's a little awkward to handle but the delivery driver was about twice my size, so we got in the space I had cleared out by shoving all my woodworking tools and such to one side.



I have pics in the gallery showing the CNC cuts and getting those separated.

After coating what will be the inside with epoxy, I began the stitching on a temporary worktable. I did read the builder's notes several times, but I know I get a little ahead of the notes. That will cost me later of course.



More to follow now that I know how to post images.

[Dougster]

That looks familiar! I just ordered a seat and pedestal to add to my SK14. Kinda tricky getting the pedestal mounted but I'll fiddle it in. Was getting back ache sitting on cooler.

Dougster