For a while now I've wanted to buy a kayak of my own. Back in the day I used to kayak all the time, renting one at this little lake by the house where I used to live in colmar, pa. Kayaks aren't cheap but pep boys (of all places) has a decent one person one for under $400. so my parents gave me money for my birthday to put towards the purchase of this kayak but bills needed to be taken care of so I used to money for that. So now that I'm back to $0 for my kayak fund, I was searching though the web today for more information and I found some sites that offer plans for building your own kayak. Sounds crazy right? But they actually look easy and I have pretty good woodworking skills (straight a's in all my woodshop classes plus my father is an awesome woodworker and I pretty much learned from him while growing up) although I've never tackled something of this size I think I'll be able to do it (and just the feeling of the first paddle of water after its completed will totally be worth it in the end) so I thought why not give it a go. the one site offers free plans for a folding kayak (sounds weird, but we used to have a folding boat so it is possible) but it uses canvas to make it fold and I think this might look tacky and me being a stickler for design, I kept searching to find one that was a little more ascetically pleasing. So I found this site. I'll have to build this at my parents (all the tools are there thanks to dad and it will give me a place to store it while I build since I live in an apartment) my parents already said I could store the one I bought there so I don't see them having an issue with me actually BUILDING one and storing it there. So I'm going to order the plans this weekend, stop by my parents sometime next week to get my dad's opinion on this and help me look over the plans to see if there's anything I don't understand. so how long will this take? they say about 80 hours of build time, BUT since i'm on such a limited budget i'm going to have to buy all these parts in stages, with each plywood panel costing $55 each i'm going to have save, save save... i'll keep ya updated on where i'm at. wish me luck!