Back to building a kayak

The building of my coho continues on, through the storm, power outages, and taxes. I have now fiberglassed the outside of the hull and am ready to assemble the deck.


First I trim off the excess fiberglass cloth from the hull. Then the hull is turned right side up and the pieces that form the deck are wired together.

The deck panels are wired together.

About this time I am beginning to wonder about the estimated 70 hours that it is supposed to take to build this boat. The simple directions call to align the deck panels to the hull panels and tape in place. It took hours. I don't know if it was my need for perfection, the fact these panels are several years warped, I don't know, but hours later, and with lots of extra wires, pins and yards of tape.....and clamps.....

IT LOOKS LIKE A KAYAK!

tape, pins, wire, and clamps

Next, epoxy is filled in the seams. The green is tape to keep the deck from getting messy. I have to admit I am getting kind of fond of green on this boat. I am still thinking of painting the hull, maybe orange, maybe a green stripe....

A few more storm photos

People drive around to view the storm and check on boats.

Big waves in the harbor, (this boat is not sinking)

Boats, Stonington through the rain in the background.

It's very difficult to photograph a storm. The waves look smaller in the photo, the color is different, and you really can't see how windy it was or cold it felt, and there's no sound. Most people I've talked to made it through the storm just fine. There were a few washed out driveways and some dock damage, and the power and phone lines were down. Being on an island, we don't get flooding like so many others had with this storm. And we get enough wind here that the fisherman have figured out how to keep their boats secure.

And then today was beautiful, that first perfect day of spring.

Storm in Stonington

Here are a few photos of our quiet harbor today.

Stonington Prepares for Storm

We are expecting the storm that has hit the rest of the eastern part of the country to arrive in the night. I know we are in for some heavy weather when the boats are tied up to the fish pier like this. We are expecting winds of 30-40 MPH with gusts up to 65.

Main Street is really quiet.

Fill coat

second epoxy fill coat

The boat gets two coats of epoxy to fill in the weave of the fiberglass. Also a strip of fiberglass tape is added to the keel. I had a couple of long days painting in my studio and worked on the boat late into the night. I think it is taking me longer than it should to do everything. Maybe I am trying to be too careful in my work. Even though I am careful there are few rough spots as seen in the photo below. I just could not get that fiberglass tape to lay down. I used pins and poked at it but it kept coming up. I cut off the high parts with a utility knife before applying the second coat of fill epoxy.

all is not neat and tidy

I have a time limit for how long it can take me to finish the boat. The high school will use the gallery for their art show and need the space by the 8th of May. And we are planning on going away for a week for our last get away before the summer gallery season starts. So I marked up a calendar to see if I can get it done. It will be very tight. The sanding, painting, and finishing will be done after the epoxy has cured, probably outside, later. I made up my schedule three days ago and am already a day behind.

boat, painting, view of harbor

But I had to spend some time painting. I am trying to avoid working in the studio with fresh epoxy fumes so I work on the boat at the end of the day.


Michael and Todd went out kayaking yesterday. Even though it is April, it is still winter here in Maine. Here they are getting their gear on. That's a lot of yellow. I am thinking of painting my boat..... orange....


Check out the Stonington seakayak blog Sea Kayak Stonington

Fiberglassing

Isalos Fine Art/Boat Shop

Putting the fiberglass on. This is the part I have worried about the most. I've helped my Dad fiberglass one of the boats he built and it was exhausting and frustrating work. But his boat was built outside in the summer so it was hotter so the epoxy cured faster, there were leaves and bugs, and it was a bigger boat. I read all I could first, but words aren't the same as actually seeing how much epoxy to use and what the fiberglass should look and feel like. After the first coat of epoxy that embeds the fiberglass, you add two fill coats that fill the weave of the fiberglass. The fill coats have to go on within 72 hours for epoxy to bond, and the boat has to stay clean.

My favorite quote about this whole epoxy process is from Kayaks You Can Build , "And, if you can, keep fondling to a minimum between the critical layers." This is really funny because it's almost impossible to be in a room with a boat that's being built out of wood and not touch it. Everyone that sees the boat has to touch it. I have my hands on it constantly.

Here I am smoothing the fiberglass cloth out, not fondling the boat - it feels like smooth dry snake skin, nice.

To roll....
or brush? Once again, I had different recommendations and so I tried them both. The rolling was faster but left extra epoxy on the seams, the brush slower and neater but not always as even. Or so it seemed at the time, looking at it this morning the rolled areas don't look all that even.


The stern is tricky, you have to cut the fiberglass and wrap it around the edge. The first side was beautiful, the second a bit messier, with little strings fraying off.



Michael helped me by mixing epoxy so I had a never ending supply ready. Even so, I felt like this picture he put together.

So the dreaded fiberglassing went OK. I took a look at it this morning. Not too bad, there are some shiny spots with a bit too much epoxy, I should have squeegeed a bit more in some areas but I was also worried about starving the fiberglass too. And it was starting to set up on me. Now I know, for the next boat....

It might seem like I spend all my time working on the kayak, and admittedly it has taken over my studio as well as my time, but I am working on a few other things as well. Here is an ad I put together that will be in the June/July issue of Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors magazine.


Links:
Rebecca's website
Isalos Fine Art
Pygmy Boats
Kayaks You Can Build
Maine Boats, Homes, & Harbors magazine.

Injecting epoxy

Injecting epoxy

Work continues on the kayak. The next step was to fill the seams with epoxy. Once again I had to decide between the directions in the construction manual or the Kayaks You Can Build book. I decided to try both and see how it went. The book calls for taping off the seam and putting a putty thick epoxy in the seam. (You can see that in the back with the blue tape).The manual calls for a thinner epoxy that is injected in the seam. The putty was neater, the injected was faster, in end, I ran out tape and used a combination.



After the epoxy cures, I remove all the wires. I actually got a blister from that.

After all the wires are removed I went over the hull removing lumps of epoxy where the wires were, refilled any low spots, and rounded the keel area. I love my cabinet scraper!




Next I put on a saturation coat. This is to saturate the wood so it doesn't suck epoxy out of the fiberglass layer and "starve" the fiberglass. I actually called Pygmy Boats to see if I needed this because, once again, the book and manual differ. But the guys who wrote the book have more experience fiberglassing and probably know just how much epoxy they need to keep the fiberglass full. I don't, so I thought I would add this extra step.

Hull half saturated.

I am planning on painting the hull of this boat, but you can see here why most people who build these boats just can't bring themselves to cover up this pretty wood.

Tomorrow I fiberglass. Hmm, maybe I better do some painting too.

Links for this post:
Pygmy Boats
Kayaks You Can Build