In 2003, Stan flew off to Minnesota and Wisconsin to meet family he didn’t know he had – I’ll blog about that another time.
But while he was over there, he was introduced to someone who made the most beautiful kayaks.
Most of us are used to seeing plastic or fiberglass kayaks, so I can hear you asking what’s so special about a kayak?
After going to a workshop and seeing a builder who did wood-strip canoe’s and kayaks, Stan was drooling over these stunningly beautiful boats.
He bought a set of plans.
Those plans moved house with us several times, until he started to build his own kayak. It took him years of painstaking work, stripping cedar planks into 2cm strips, creating a ‘strongback and frame’ on which he then started gluing the strips of wood, one after another, after another. For three years he glued and sanded and formed the hull.
To me, it looked like nothing except the hull of a very long skinny boat. But he saw the creation taking place under his hands.
Then came the time to turn it over and build the deck onto the hull. This time, he chose other beautiful timbers to highlight the existing beauty of the cedar: rimu (a native New Zealand timber), walnut and American white oak.
More sanding, and then came the time to pour resin over the whole thing.
Once the gloss of the resin had been poured, and sanded, and poured and sanded, the art of his creation became apparent.
How like our lives this is. We start out as a raw, unformed lump of something, and once God has hammered, and glued, and sanded, and polished, He can finally see the reflection of His glory in us.
So, back to the kayak. Stan has decided it’s time to sell his creation, but before it goes, I thought I’d share how completely beautiful this cedar tree has turned out to be.
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