Day 6 - Reinforcing the top deck

The panels are now glued together and I have all the sections at their full length. I've taken the the 4 pieces that make up the top deck and put them so the inside face is facing up. At each cockpit, I am adding a 3-1/2" piece of plywood to provide some additional rigidity to the boat. I first cut each piece a bit longer and will trim later. The pieces were glued on using a mix of the fiberglass resin and some sawdust powder (that came with the kit). The sawdust acts as a thickening agent and prevents the resin from running all over the place.

After I glued the pieces down, I weighted them with some bricks. In the foreground, you can see the glossy patch that is one of teh panel joints.










Here we are all glued up with as many weights as I felt like getting out. I ran a bit short on resin and didn't feel like making any more tonight. You can see (if you look really hard) how the panels will line up and form the top of the boat. Tomorrow - I may get done with the remaining reinforcements.




Special Notice: I would like to recognize my wife, Sheryl, who's idea it was to move the ladders in the garage. This gave me enough space to raise the work bench up and out of the way. I was going to just put the ladders out in the weather on the side of the house. This is proof that I do actually listen to my wife...sometimes.

Day 5 - Sunny Sunday

No pictures today. With the onset of some much needed sun, the kayak took the backseat to a much needed bike ride and staining the fence. Tyler provided ample assistance in staining the fence and it once again looks like new. As for work on the kayak, a couple of things were done today.

1. I did filp the left side of the hull pieces over and got them fiberglassed at the joints - just like I did the right side. Just finshed that at 8:30 p.m. They are safely tucked in under some brickes and mylar. The heater is set at 65 degrees to keep the garage warm for the resin to set.

2. A letter came in the mail. Apparently I need to license my kayak. I guess I'm doing my part to support something worthwhile in the government. Need to so some research to see how much my boat license will cost me. I'm sure it'll be a bargain.

Well, the sun has gone down, and the week ahead is just a short few hours ahead. Time to relax.

Day 4 - Half done?

The time is 11:30 p.m. Done again for the day. This has been the first Saturday of work. Woke up and pulled the bricks to see what I had. The fiberglass cloth dried perfectly clear - like glass. There's absolutely no way I am going to be able to re-use any of the brushes, unless I want to hammer something with them. I trimmed up the edges of the deck pieces where the fiberglass tape extended over the edges. May want to get an exacto knife for this. Used a utility knife with a fresh blade, and it was slow going. I then had to flip the pieces over and sand smooth the surface of the pieces. Started off with 80 grit, then 120 and then to 220. Pretty smooth when I got done. Then I re-taped the pieces and let them dry while I went to Tyler's football game. Upon returning from the game, I trimmed up the pieces and set them aside.


The next step was to do the other half of the hull and deck pieces. Got things prepped, lined up, and tacked in place. The wire brads I'm using should be filled with the fiberglass when I coat the whole thing later on. I've got pieces of fiberglass tape cut to fit and small pieces of clear plastic to put over the tape. The plastic helps keep the bricks from sticking to the boat. That would be bad.



Here's the joint just after I "wetted out" the joint and put the fiberglass cloth down and the plastic over the top. Now a quick squeegee to smooth it out and put the bricks on.

Tomorrow - flip them over and do the other side. I see that it is going to be a long slow journey to get this built.

Day 3 - Brick-hedge

It's 10:00 p.m. on a Friday night. Just got done with the first day of actual asembly. I took all the parts from the left side of the boat and carefully stored them to the side of the garage. Then, I lined up the pieces from the right side of the boat and tacked them into place. I didn't want to have them shift while I was glueing them togehter.


The first picture is of the top deck panel being lined up and tacked.

I've now mixed up my first 1.5 ounces of fiberglass and hardner. Pretty goopy stuff. The manual says that the resin flows better above 70 degrees. I have the garage at 72 degrees with a space heater going. Good thing I didn't go with the propane heater. In this picture, I've wetted down the joint with a disposal paint brush and placed a piece of 1.5" wide fiberglasss cloth over the top. The cloth turned almost instantly clear.





After I got the joints all glued down, I used a plastic scraper to squeeze the joint and press out any excess resin. Then I put the concrete bricks on the joints to hold them down. They are now tucked in and ready for a 8 hours of curing time. See how they are doing the in the morning. I am supposed to trim the edges of the panels when the resin has set. I thought the blocks looked like stonehedge.

Day 2 - September 25, 2008

The picture to the left is a typical piece of the hull. Just over an 1/8" thick. After a trip to Home Depot to pick up more miscellaneous tools, I came home and began work on the final stages of the work bench construction. I installed eye bolds at 4 points along the 4'x20' work bench, then attached a series of pullies and 1/4" rope to the work bench to see if it could lift the work bench up and out of the way. After some temporary relocation of a few bikes hanging from the ceiling, I was albe to raise entire work bench about 8 feet off the ground. Plenty of room to pull in the truck when the weather turns nasty. I then built my third sawhorse to support the work bench. After lowering teh work bench into place, I covered it with 1.5 mil plastic covering to keep the spills contained and prevent any fiberglass from sticking to the bench. We'll see if that works.

The second picture is all the pieces laid out on the work bench. There are two of each piece - so what you see will construct half of the kayak.

The third picture is of the stuff that came in the second box. It contained the fiberglass resin, fiberglass cloth, rigging, seats, footrests, and other tools.

Now with the garage cleaned out (found that my table saw just fits under the bench - more good accidental planning on my part), I was ready to inventory all the parts. Laid the pieces out on the tabe in order of assembly and found all the pieces were there.