Build a better kayak than you can buy
On our 8-day course you can build your own kayak. It’s easier than it might sound. The course includes materials, access to the tools you need, supervision and food and refreshments. The only thing you need to add yourself is time, somewhere to sleep and painting your finished kayak.
Our course week looks like this
The course begins on Saturday morning at 9:00 a.m. with coffee and a review of the construction manual. On the first day, frame templates are set up and by the evening you can see that it will be a kayak!
Then you work on assembling the parts and laminating with fiberglass and epoxy. The days are of different lengths and this is because you have to get to certain points in the manual in order to finish the construction during the course week.
If you choose to stay in our B&B, breakfast is served at 8.30. We eat coffee, dinner and supper together in our fine workshop kitchen.
After the end of the course, the kayak must harden for a week before being sanded and varnished.
The Kayaks we build
We build kayaks according to the stitch-and-glue concept, which means that finished plywood panels are “stitched” together to form the hull and deck, after which the inside and outside are laminated with fiberglass and epoxy. The result is a light and strong kayak in roughly half the time compared to a strip build.
The kayaks we build are designed by Björn Thomasson – a living legend in boat building and paddling.
If you have difficulty knowing which model would suit you, we will be happy to help you, so please get in touch!
Alleq is a kayak that Björn Thomasson designed for us. It has a more angular appearance than Björns Nanoq and more closely resembles the original Illorsuit which is a legendary kayak built in West Greenland sometime in the 1950s. Read more about these kayak models on Björn Thomasson’s website.
I ett samarbete mellan Björn, som är designer, och Dan Caouette, som är kajakbyggare och duktig på att rita i CAD-program, har vi tagit fram Alleq 52 och Alleq 55.
As the name suggests, the Alleq 52 is 520 cm long. The width is 51 cm and it has a fairly low front deck, just like most kayaks inspired by Greenland kayaks. The Alleq 55 is slightly larger – 546 cm long and 52 cm wide. It also has a slightly higher deck.
Construction kit base
This kit includes panels, milled out of gaboon plywood and bending plywood, framing templates, cockpit skirting made of plywood, drawings and a simple construction description.
Price: 4100 Sek
Complete kit
Details such as Base but also hatches, cockpit ring in carbon/fiberglass, fiberglass fabric, epoxy, Kajaksport click-on hatches, skeg from Kajaksport and footrests from Smart-track.
Price: SEK 14,100
Building course and Complete sats
Place in the workshop, supervision, tools and machines needed for construction, morning and afternoon coffee and lunch 8 days. The course is quite intensive but not a baptism of fire.
Price: SEK 21,000
Varnishing
After the end of the construction course, there remains sanding, leveling with epoxy and varnishing/painting. This service can be purchased in addition and costs:
1 color + clear coat 6000 Sek
2 colors + clear coat 6500 Sek
Custom built by us
Alleq can also be bought ready-made in any color. Price SEK 33,000
Black Pearl is the first kayak that we started building in plywood according to the construction method “stitch & glue”.
This is how designer Björn Thomassons himself describes the Black Pearl kayak:
“Black Pearl is a long, low and very narrow kayak, of the East Greenlandic type. It is extremely easy to maneuver and reacts directly to minimal center of gravity shifts, tilts, etc. and has sufficient final stiffness to be able to spin around on a high support. It is very easy to roll. Black Pearl is initial rank but has a final stiffness that means you get used to it relatively quickly”.
Read more about Black Pearl on Björn Thomasson’s fantastic website.
Together with Björn Thomasson and Dan Caouette in Maine, we have designed/developed six plywood versions of the Black Pearl, from 351 cm to 559 cm.
Building kit Base
This kit includes panels milled out of gaboon plywood and bending plywood, framing templates, cockpit skirting made of plywood, drawings and a simple construction description.
Price: 3800 Sek
Building kit complete
Details such as Base but also hatch recesses, cockpit skirt, seat cast in carbon/fiberglass, hatches from RWO, fiberglass fabric, epoxy and spoon from Kayaksport.
Price: SEK 11,900
Building course & materialset complete
Place in the workshop, supervision, tools and machines needed for construction, morning and afternoon coffee and lunch 8 days. The course is quite intensive but not a baptism of fire.
Price: SEK 19,950
Varnishing
After the end of the construction course, there remains sanding, leveling with epoxy and varnishing/painting. This service can be purchased in addition and costs:
1 color + clear coat 6000 Sek
2 colors + clear coat 6500 Sek
Custom made, build for you by us
Black Pearl can also be purchased fully built and painted in any color.
Price: from SEK 31,000
Frej is our most commonly built plywood kayak. It is cut out with cnc technology, which enables precise joints with a puzzle piece design, and is therefore good for sending as a construction kit to your door. If you want more guidance, help with building space, machines and a nice week in our workshop, you can come to Tranås and build your kayak here.
The kayak is built with a core of plywood and with fiberglass fabric and epoxy on the outside and inside. Frej is 510 cm long and 54 cm wide and you can choose a cockpit between 60 and 80 cm. It is intended to be fitted with hatches and watertight bulkheads and should be fitted with an adjustable scoop.
Frej is a new but proven kayak. It has been built in wood strip for a few years and in 2015 it came as a fiberglass kayak made by Struerboats in Denmark and now Dan Caouette at Clear Stream Custom Water Craft has converted it to be made in Plywood using the ‘stitch & glue”.
On Björn Thomassons homepage there is a lot of information about Frej´s characteristics, the designer’s thoughts and history about the Frej kayak.
Building kit base
This kit includes panels milled out of gaboon plywood and bending plywood, framing templates, cockpit skirting made of plywood, drawings and a simple construction description.
Price: SEK 4,250
Complete kit
Details such as Base but also hatch recesses, cockpit surround, seat cast in carbon/fiberglass, fiberglass fabric, epoxy, click-on hatches from Kayaksport, spoons from Kayaksport and footrests from Smart Track.
Price: SEK 14,500
Building course and complete building kit
Place in the workshop, supervision, tools and machines needed for construction, morning and afternoon coffee and lunch 8 days. The course is quite intensive but not a baptism of fire.
Price: SEK 21,000
Varnishing
After the end of the construction course, there remains sanding, leveling with epoxy and varnishing/painting. This service can be purchased in addition and costs: 1 color + clear coat SEK 6,000, 2 colors + clear coat SEK 6,500
Custom made for you by us
Frej can also be bought fully built and painted in any color.
Price: from SEK 33,000
This is how the designer Björn Thomassons himself describes the kayak Panthera:
“Panthera is a new hybrid kayak – simply put, a surf ski with a kayak deck. But of course it’s not really that simple. Although the hull shape is basically a Spindrift, there is a not insignificant influence from Njord. I therefore expect the kayak to be slightly calmer than a pure surf ski, but that it is still controllable if you should be hit by an urgent desire to diagonally surf in rough seas. I also expect that on surfboards you can maintain a higher speed in the sea precisely because of the surfing properties.
Basically, the Panthera is so close to the surfski ideal that a rudder is necessary to take full advantage of the potential. An underlying surf ski rudder is of course best, for the precision of the steering, but with a little sea kayak in the concept, it also works well with an aft rudder. With a long-distance load, the kayak lies a little deeper in the water and thus with a little more course stability, which gives a more relaxed paddling over long distances throughout the day.”
Building kit Base
This kit includes panels milled out of gaboon plywood and bending plywood, framing templates, cockpit skirting made of plywood, drawings and a simple construction description.
Price: SEK 4,100
Building kit Complete
Details such as Base but also hatch recesses, cockpit skirting, seat cast in carbon/fiberglass, fiberglass fabric, epoxy, hatches, scoops from Kayaksport as well as rudder and footrests from Smart Track.
Price: SEK 15,900
Construction course material set complete
Place in the workshop, supervision, tools and machines needed for construction, morning and afternoon coffee and lunch 8 days. The course is quite intensive but not a baptism of fire.
Price: SEK 22,500
Varnishing
After the end of the construction course, there remains sanding, leveling with epoxy and varnishing/painting. This service can be purchased in addition and costs:
1 color + clear coat 6000 Sek
2 colors + clear coat 6500 Sek
Efter en massa jobb vid tangenterna kunde vi starta cnc-fräsen och ut kom Black River 500. Namnet har den fått efter Svartån som rinner här genom Tranås.
Tack vare Kalle kan vi nu visa de första bilderna på en kanadensare i plywoodkomposit. Är du intresserad av en egenbyggd kanadensare så är den på gång. Vår förhoppning är att det ska gå bra att bygga även denna kanot på vår 8-dagars kurs, den kommer naturligtvis även att kunna köpas som byggsats för den som hellre pular själv i garaget. Relingslister kommer att tillverkas i mahogny och det kommer att bli ett litet däck i för och akter men möjlighet till ett vattentätt förvaringsutrymme.
Byggsatser
Material, plywood Gaboon 4mm till skrov cnc-frästa delar, spantmallar av 9mm furuplywood. monterings ritning.
Pris: 3675 SEK plus ev. frakt.
Said about our courses
We came back and built a third Black Pearl!
2010 we had been married for 10 years and celebrated this by going to Tranås and building each our own Black Pearl, size small. We hoped that eventually they would become manageable for our daughters, then 11, 8, and 6 years old. Our hopes were met with flying colors and since we have three daughters, one pearl was missing. There was another Easter break in Tranås in 2011 when we built a pearl in size X-small. By taking an 8-day course with Petrus, the construction becomes very manageable in time! Petrus know-how, the availability of tools and all materials make the whole thing unbeatable.
Do you want to build a kayak on a course with us?
The kayak building courses are a winter activity that runs between September and May.
Kayak building courses, autumn 2023
- 14-22 October
- 28 Oct – 5 Nov
- 11-19 November
- 25 Nov – 3 Dec
- 10-17 December
If you have requests for other dates, it can often be arranged. Just get in touch with us.
Material for you who build your own kayak at home
For those of you who build a kayak in your own workshop, there is a lot of material to buy from us. We manufacture cockpit skirts, seats, hatch recesses, “tub” for dayhatch and bucket systems. For price information call +46 70 227 11 71
Questions and answers
Det här är en fråga vi ofta får, och tro det eller ej men det är lättare än vad många föreställer sig! I regel så är det två egenskaper som är väsentliga för att bygga sin egen kajak: gott tålamod, och viss noggrannhet. Annars räcker det faktiskt med att man kan följa instruktioner.
Vår ambition är att se till att så många som möjligt ska kunna få upplevelsen att paddla sin egentillverkade kajak! För att gå en kurs hos oss behöver man egentligen inga tidigare erfarenheter eller kunskaper inom snickeri, vi tillhandahåller verktyg och handledning för alla, även de som kanske aldrig tidigare vistats i en verkstad. Vi har varit kursledare sedan 15 år tillbaka och hittills har ALLA kursdeltagare haft en kajak som håller en hög kvalitet med sig hem.
Att bygga en kajak innefattar väldigt många olika moment och alla har olika färdigheter, erfarenheter och kunskaper sedan tidigare. Somliga är i grunden väldigt händiga, andra har god erfarenhet av hantering av maskiner och verktyg och en del är rena naturbegåvningar på att laminera. Men alla är vi barn i början, därför finns vi som kursledare där för er och vi hjälps åt med det som behövs.
Det underlättar självklart byggprocessen om man tidigare har använt sig av skruvdragare, roller, slipmaskin, knivar av olika slag, stämjärn, sickel etc. men det är absolut inte ett krav.
Priset beror en del på val av modell, och om du väljer att göra saker som slutlackering själv eller inte. Du hittar priser under varje kajakmodell i avsnittet Kajakerna vi bygger.
