How-To: Turn Your Office Into A Kayak

This tutorial for making a kayak from materials found in an office by Instructables author johntonta is nothing short of a brilliant work of art.

In an effort to explore low cost and sustainable ways of taking to the waves, I have developed this kayak build (based on a traditional Inuit Qayaq), which uses or rather re-uses the most readily available materials. This is instead of relying on expensive and polluting polymers, exotic plywood or even sealskin and whale ribs which make sense in the arctic, but not most other places. My choice of materials then was: suits, desks and computers.

Despite the genuine practicality of this wonderful tutorial, I can’t think of anything that could highlight humanity’s tenuous relationship with nature more poetically than a vessel for exploring the world made in from the very materials that effectively insulate us from it!

The frame is covered with a ‘skin’. I made this from unpicking business suits and sewing them into a large sheet, wrapping around the frame and waterproofing it with an oil/wax mix.

Excuse me, I have to go saw my desk into useful pieces of timber now.