Another Great Weekend

Alright, so this weekend I focused on smoothing out dimensioning issues and working on a fully assembled 3D model, which I did get a prototype version completed. The model still has a few quirks and issues to fix, but at first glance it does look like a completed frame assembly. There a few details, such as four of the top stringer's I still have to give visual representation to how I'm going to attach them.

here are some pics of the full assembly.

Whew, got a lot done this week end

Surprisingly enough I was able to get a lot acomplished this weekend. I first decided that I needed to draw out as much as the boat as I could pull dimensions out on and that worked out really well and, as it turned out, the dimensioning I had started on for the end brace previously was all wrong. So reworking things turned out really well for me. I also have a naming system in place that I will be using for all of the peices as i go along in the build. For now though I have both the End Brace and the Mid Brace assembled in Autodesk Inventor and, of course, all of the peices that go with them dimensioned and saved.


To the left there is the end brace and to the right the mid brace

Each of these braces will apear twice in the boat, since it is esencialy just half a foling Kayak mirrored width wise. Finally the last thing I did was to take all of the information and pieces I had built up for the end brace and put them into, what I hope is, an easy-to-read set of diagrams to referance later when I physicaly build the PakYak and for others. I could have gotten the mid brace done the same way, with the information I have, but doing that work gets sort fo tedious after a while. Not to mention I still needed to confirm a few details with Jim Heter first.

Fabric Just Came In

Alright, so something that I left out in yesterdays post was that about a week ago I ordered the heavy duty nylon fabric for my PakYak's skin. Although this step in the project is still a good distance off I decided to order it now because I found a great price on the 1000D polyurethane coated nylon fabric in the closeout section of Rochford Supply. Of course I didn't want to miss it, so here I am a week later with 8 yards of digital camo (the new pattern the military is using for their uniforms) arriving here on my doorstep, though strictly speaking I only needed 5 yards of the stuff. Yeah, I know it isn't really all that exiting, but I figured make the effort to make the update.

I'm getting started now..

For those of you who don't know what the PakYak is, its a collapsible Kayak that folds down into a convenient backpack sized pack. (roughly 12" by 6" by 20" in the model I'm building) Which then unfolds into a nifty 10' Kayak. It's comprised of a wooded or aluminum frame that unfolds inside of a waterproof nylon fabric skin to keep the boat afloat. The latest model, which can be seen on Jim Heter's PakYak website linked to the right, is actually a compilation of over 20 years of experience with the "PakYak" design and idea. Also on his website are the plans to his 4th version model.

My goals during this project are: to be able to confidently say that I understand exactly how this design woks, I can say that I've built one, earn a high school credit for doing this project for a research and development class, and finally (as a by product of the previous goal) to contribute to the PakYak through helping to make it easier for others to build by providing isometric views of the design and it's components with my 3D modeling software.

For the time being things will be a little slow since I don't have a prescribed time set aside yet to work on my PakYak with any sort of regularity, but my hopes are high.

So far I've begun to pour over some of the design modifications that were made to Jim Heter's latest design versus the 4.0 PakYak that he has plans listed for on his website. The details that Jim gave to me on the new design can be veiwed here: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddvg4hw7_19hs2446cd A lot of this is just going to be wrapping my mind around it and chipping away slowly at the details. I've already started to build my boat digitally in Autodesk Inventor and so far I just have the bare bones to one of the endbraces.