In 1965-66, Patti and I rented a house in North Portland. I have been trying to remember the address, but can only place it one or two blocks south of Lombard Street and east of Portsmouth Ave. Maybe someday, if I ever go back to Portland to visit, I may look for it. Anyway, it was a nice older place with a basement, a large back yard, and a single-car dirt-floor garage on the alley south of the house. In that garage I completed two pretty major projects.

The first was a major rebuild of a Triumph TR4 engine. In those days cars were much simpler than they are today. This 4-cylinder 2200cc engine had wet sleeve cylinders that were replaceable. As part of the rebuild I purchased a .030” over bored set of cylinders, a piston and tie rod kit, and new crankshaft bearings. I then disassembled the engine and installed the new parts. I was very relieved when the engine started right up after being put back together and ran great until I sold the car.

The second project was my building a thin wooden-shell kayak, which I still have today even though it has not been in the water since probably 1969.

I got the bug to build it after reading an article in Poplar Mechanics magazine. To get started I ordered the plans, which came complete with full-size drawings for the shape-producing bulkhead templates—which I made from ½’ plywood. For some reason I still have these templates in a box in my shop even though I will never use them again.

To start, I had to make a 2’ X 4” frame to mount the templates onto—at the prescribed distance apart and at a covenant working height. I purchased some ¾” cedar boards and ripped them into ¼” thick strips on my radial arm saw. I then went through the tedious process of edge gluing the strips together one at a time over the bottom-side templates. I don’t remember how long this took because I could only glue two or three strips between allowing the glue to set up. It had to be a few weeks.

At that time I had very few tools so I had to make do with a dozen 2” C clamps, a hammer, and a lot of tiny nails.

After hand-sanding the bottom half, I removed it from the templates and repeated the process to complete the top half of the shell.

After I sanded the top half and removed it from the templates I somehow married the two halves into a complete shell. I don’t remember how I did that but it worked and is still together after 50 years.

To compete the kayak I attached a small keel, trimmed the open cockpit, made a removable seat, and coated everything with fiberglass.

On our next week-long camping trip to the South Fork of the Tieton River, I packed the TR4 with camping gear, tied the Kayak on top, and Patti, baby Kirsten, Clyde the dog, and I drove to the campground. As an aside, while driving on Interstate 5, another car pulled alongside and the passenger leaned out of her window and took a picture of this strange moving scene.

On the camping trip, the kayak got a fun workout by most everyone there—including my mom and dad, Patti, and me. Even Clyde tried to take a ride but all he was able to do was swim behind. Uncle Max tried an unusual way to get in to it. The river was about 2 feet deep where we got into the craft and to do so we had to hold onto both sides of the cockpit and carefully balance and lower into it. For whatever reason Max thought he could just climb in but got a surprise when it quickly rolled over and he ended up in the water. We all got a laugh out of that.

During the past 50 years I have carried this craft from house to house and shop to shop. Since it has not been used since 1968-69, and in the 1980s it was unknowingly stored outside for about a year, it suffered some. By the time I found it outside it was full of pine needles, dirt, and maybe had been used as a raccoon retreat. Anyway, I did rescue it but have never done the repair it deserves. Maybe someday I will.

As I was making the craft, my brother, Ernie, decided to make one himself. However, he covered his with canvas rather than wood. He brought it along to the same camping trip and everyone had fun paddling it also. Ernie has always been very handy in a carpenter sort of way.

I guess one of these days I will have to decide what to do with this relic.

Ken Kaiyala
10-25-17