First Curve Cut!

Wow, I hope your not following the dates on this blog, cause its been more than a few months since i got my lazy butt out to the garage to start working on the deck again. I was somewhat troubled by how i wanted to do the design, and what sequence to strip it. I'm still not really sure, but i decided to do something at least. So I'm stripping the background of one side of the curve, cut out the curve, then strip the curve, cut that out the the other side of the curve, the strip the otherside of the background. Who knows if that saves me any fine adjustment whittling or not.

Deck Design

Flipped the Hull and thinking about working on the Deck. It wouldn't ordinarily take that long to do, but once you decide to put some kind of design on it, it all of sudden turns into a serious time sink. Actually, I spent way too much time thinking about what i wanted the design to be, then how I was going to go about making it happen.

As you can see i decided on the swoops. then I used the thin bendy lengths to mark out the curves on my forms. Then I tried to do it to scale with measurements on paper.

FORGET about all that. Just get an idea of what you want, strip one side of the background until it overlaps the curve, then place the bendy lengths on top of the bacground, mark it, then cut our your first curve. I think that's the easiest way. There's no way I could do that percise a scale down/up with measurements and make it work.

Fiberglassing the Hull

Oh Boy!!! Fiberglassing. I guess there comes a point where you just have to give it a go. I read the kit manual, Nick Schade's book, and researched every last key word I could think about on the internet, but there came a time when I just had to let it pour.

Its nerve racking because after all the time I spent stripping, gluing, and sanding. . . when it came to fiberglassing, it felt like one false move would forever be plastered into the boat.

Here's how I prepared:
1) Started on a weekend that I had free. Though its not absolutely necessary that the glassing get done over consecutive days, its easier. The additional layers of epoxy to fill the cloth weave can either be done when the epoxy is partially cured, 4-8 hours, or fully cured >12 hours. If you chose the full cure route, then you have to wash of the amine blush and sand before adding another layer.

2) I went for the small foam roller to spread the epoxy. Many people said they didn't like the roller because it soaks up too much epoxy, or it introduces bubbles, but I thought it did a great job of spreading the epoxy quickly and evenly. And because it does absorb some expoxy, it was possible to give a little more in areas of need with a little harder pressure. Down side is they are a bit expensive and can only be used once.

3) I also bought a Squeegie and Laminate roller from Fiberlay, http://www.fiberlay.com/, since they were near my house. I got the 6" heavy duty squeegie which was really helpful, perhaps necessary. The Laminate roller was really nice too when a few big bubbles arose. I probably should have used it more, since after adding a second layer of fiber glass, i noticed some tiny little bubbles arise.

4) I got a couple graduated quart containers for mixing the epoxy, just because I was paranoid that the pumps that came with the resin and hardner would not be completlely accurate. I trust them now, so i just use small disposable plastic cups to mix the epoxy in.

5) Lastly, I got some acetone. Don't forget the acetone. Epoxy is messy stuff, especially when you're nervous and the stuff is getting all over the place. You need a good solvent to clean up your tools.

6) I also had a mask, nitrile glove, and eye protection.

This is me almost half way into wetting out the first layer of fiberglass. Every thing went surprisingly smoothly. Everyone says it, but it is wonderful to see the opaque cloth turn transparent with your now darkend rich colored kayak beneath.

After laying out the cloth over the hull on the diagonal, the bias, you just smooth it out, then pour you epoxy on and spread it out. Its pretty obvious if there's enough there, if not, then its not transparent. Then if you have it, you can use your laminate roller to squeeze out any air or epoxy pockets that are lifting the cloth from the wood. Finally, you squeegie out the excess epoxy. I used a V slit in a piece of cardboard to clean my squeegie between pulls.

There she is looking all pretty after her first layer of fiberglass.



So far, the stern was the only eye sore that I could find. The cloth does not lay flat at sharper angles, so I had to cut the cloth and overlap it. I wasn't sure if that's what you had to do, but it seemed like the only way. So my stomach turned a bit when I saw the nasty overlapped edge.

Of course, that was just the beginning. The Kit instructions say just to use one layer of cloth, but everyone else on the internet was using mutiple layers. Sometimes 2 complete layers, sometimes an extra layer just on the bottom of the hull to the stems, sometimes 3-4 extras layers on the stems. So I was conflicted. I didn't want a wimpy boat, but I also didn't know if there was enough material in the kit for an extra layer. Also, everyone was saying that you trade strenght for weight.

Anyway, I decided to add another layer just on the bottom of the boat and the stems. Well, after I did my amazingly poor job of cutting out a symmetric football shape, I started to have a sinking feeling in my gut as i started to wet out the second layer. I wasn't sure if it was my horrible cutting job or if the frayed edges always looked this bad.

Not very pretty job of cutting the cloth for the second partial layer.

Yucky, frayed edges.

The problem is that the frayed edges where I cut became more frayed as I squeegied off the excess expoy. There was glass strands and cottony looking crap all over the place. I hope that after sanding it will all smooth out, but if I were to do it again, I think I would have just added a whole second layer.

Anyway, I put on two more epoxy fill layer to fill in the weave of the cloth. That's why I wanted to have a couple of days free to try to finish the hull. But before I do any more fill layers, i'm gonna let the epoxy cure for a day and try to sand down some of the nastier looking transisitons b/w layers. Then do the final fill layers for the smooth finish. Wish me luck!

Final sanding

There she is after using a fairing board to sand her with 80 grit followed by random orbit sander 80 grit, then 100 grit fairing board, then 100 grit random orbit sander, then 120 grit random orbit sander.

I highly recommend that you have some serious ventilation or do your sanding outside. Definitely wear a respirator/ mask and glasses. I did an initial sanding in the garage because it was late and the random orbit sander was too loud. Well the next day every nook and crany of my garage had a fine red dust layer on it.

Those are the two fairing boards I made with 1/4" ply wood and spray on adhesive. One is 80 grit, the other 100 grit.

This is how the wood looks wetted down. The final sanding with 100 grit is done by hand after wetting down the wood and allowing it to dry. Wetting it makes the grain stand up or something.





Next I have to get ready for the fiberglassing. Yikes... that's scary.

Final Hull Strips

Just a few strips left!!

Gets a bit more difficut towards the end because both ends are tapered and need to be squeezed in. But as the length of the strip gets shorter, the less bending capacity you have to position the 2nd end in for the sqeeze.

The taper is pretty much marking where the full width of the strip wil meet the the other side, then drawing a line to the tip of the taper. After that its mostly using the block plane to get the right angle. If you didn't cut a perfectly straight center line, like me, then you may have to pretty that side up with a box cutter or sand paper.

Blurry picutre, but you get the idea. Just 2 strips left.

One strip left.

And finally the last strip. Its practically a sliver.





Ta-da!! All done stripping the hull now.



And here are some of the shavings. Love the shavings. Curly, nice color, smell good, and they go crunch when you smush them.

External Stem- Stern end

Here's the internal stem fully stripped and almost ready for the external stem to be glued. Joe recommended a 45 degree cut at the end, towards the center of the boat, to allow more external stem to show.


Attaching the external stem has been a true pain in the A**! The problem is that I laminated and bent the external stem at the same time as the internal stem. Bad idea. The internal stem changes shape with stripping and trimming. Probably worse is that the external stem changes shape just sitting around. Mine seemed to straighten.

Well once you have a thick 'ol chunck of semi bent hard wood, its very hard to bend it more once its laminated. So my suggestion to you is to save the laminating of the external stem until its time to attach it.

Darryl gave me that great tip, but unfortunately it was a few days after I lamintated them.

I was, for the most part, able to whittle down the internal stem of the stern side to fit the external stem. This picture is from that process.


It wasn't a perfect fit, but close enough.

That darker color is my attempt to steam the external stem one last time to undo any extra tension that may be there by forcing the stem to fit with clamps.

The thing is that with enough clamps you CAN make the external stem fit, but it will be under tension, which is a bad idea. Joe said during hot days the glue may give a little and the stem may start to apply stress to the fiber glass... overall not good for the structure of the boat.

I'm dealing with the bow end now with some suggestions from Joe.

1) Try to shape the internal stem. Well that isn't quite going to work b/c the external stem is too straight and I'd have to cut into the 1st station to bring the internal stem down far enough.

2) Bend it with steam. That's virtually impossible since the laminated stem is really too thick for the steam to penetrate. I've steamed the sucker numerous times without success.

3) Shave the external stem as much as possible, then steam it. The thinner the wood, the better chance you have of steaming it properly. That's what i'm trying now. Lots of water on a wash cloth and a very hot iron. If you can steam well enough then the wood will relax and take a new shape. That avoids any tension built into the boat.

4) If all else fails, get more material and re-laminate the external stem to fit the internal stem exactly.

Tapered Ends

Now that I'm done with the less complicated part, I can now enter into the finer shaping bit. It takes a while to get used to shaving the ends of the strips to squeeze in to the slender wedge where the one side meets the midline.


The first few strips were kinda perplexing to me cause the strip was width was nearly vertical, so to fit it I had to cut into the thickness of the strip and the width. Pretty much just marked it as best as I could, shaved it with the block plane and tried fitting it about a billion times 'til i got it right.


Here's a picture of a rougher cut. Still gots a ways to go to get it in there perfectly.