Day 49 - Fill Coat on the top deck

Yesterday I drilled holes in the boat - here's one of them. On the top deck, you can see some of the grid of the fiberglass mat. That's what I'm going to fix today.









First used my sanding block with 80 grit, then switched to the orbital sander with 100, then 120 grit. After that, I followed up with some hand sanding with 150 grit and 220 grit sand paper. Lots of dust. I was wearing gloves when I was doing the sanding. Found that the dust makes my skin dry.





Cleaned the boat with the shop vac and wiped it down with a mist of water and some paper towels. Ran a line of painters tap along the side of the boat to catch any drips that could occur as a result of the resin application.




Using the 7" foam roller, I applied the resin. Here's the boat half done. quite a difference in the finish. There are a number of small bubbles in the resin that need to come out.










Here's the result of the work tonight. I used a 4" wide foam paint brush to smooth out any marks in the resin and to remove the air bubbles. It's almost smooth as glass. Going to let it setup for a day or two, then I'll flip it over and start sanding the bottom of the boat in preparation for the varnish. That should be fun. I did a small area on the stern and found it takes about 3 coats to get a good shine.

Day 48 - Drilling holes in the kayak

After spending much time making the boat waterproof, I proceeded to drill 8 holes in the boat. Two 1/2" holes were drilled - one at the bow and one at the stern - to allow the handles and any ropes to be threaded through for docking and transporting. The 1/2" hole was just the right size for one of my router bits with a 1/4" round off to fit inside and provide a rounded edge to the hole. That should prevent any chafing of the lines. Sanded down those holes and moved on to the next series of holes.

I measured where the foot braces should go, and using some blue painters tape to do the layout (so I wasn't marking on the boat), I proceeded to drill 6 holes for each of the foot rests. Once these were in, I threaded the foot rests on with the screw on the inside of the boat and foot brace on the outside. Once I got it loosely fit, I lined up the foot brace so it appeared horizontal and used a smaller drill bit to feed through the mounting hole on the other end of the foot brace and act as a pilot hole. Reamed out all the holes to clean them when done and put the foot braces aside.

Mixed up a small batch of epoxy and used a small modeling paint brush to paint the cut edges of the 14 holes I just drilled. Now time to cure, and another run to Home Depot. Need to pick up some Velcro and contact cement.

Day 47 - Seat backs installed

Sanded down some rough edges from yesterday's reinforcement strips on the hip braces. Then drilled some 1/4" holes in them to attach the seat backs to. Had to first install the foam pad on the plastic seat pad. Contact cement smells good.

I did not put in one of the pieces that holds the back of the seat from swinging downward. I will be removing the back rests when I put in the foot braces. Also, I don't want them in the boat when I do my final sanding and varnishing. That's going to be one big dusty mess.

While I was waiting for the contact cement to dry out, I sanded the back portion of the boat down to 600 grit and applied some varnish to see what it looks like. The finish is currently somewhat dull and muted. However, each successive coat is supposed to be more shiny. You can see the foot braces to the left.

Day 45 & 46: Hip braces on the starboard side

Over the weekend, installed the hip braces on the starboard side. Though it wasn't a lot of work, it took three applications of resin - all of which required a lot of cure time. The temperatures outside were in the 20's and 30's. The garage kept pretty warm with the heater, but it did cause the resin to set a bit slower.

Now I'm ready to install the seat backs!

Day 44 - reinforcing hip braces

Here's what I did in the previous days work. Put the hip braces in on the port side and ran some thickened epoxy to create a fillet.

Time for some sanding. Smoothed out the fillets. Used the shop vac to clean up the dust and then wiped everything down.

Put small pieces of fiberglass cloth over each joint. Done for the night. Tomorrow morning, I'll flip the boat over and do the same thing to the other side.

Day 43 - hip braces

No pictures today. Yesterday, spent about 20 minutes putting some epoxy on the 1/8" thick by 3-1/2" wide plywood pieces that will make up the hip braces. These pieces of wood will extend vertically down from the cockpit (near the back of the cockpit), and tie into the floor. They will do two things. Reinforce the cockpit opening and provide a connection point for the seat back.

Got the 6 pieces (2 for each hole) and glued in the pieces on the port side. I have the kayak tipped on its side to make it easier, and use gravity. With the boat on its side, the pieces just lay in there. I used some thickened resin to glue the pieces in place, then thickened it up a bit more to provide a fillet. Tomorrow, I'll probably put in the other pieces. After a day of curing on the port side, I'll sand it down really quick, and then run a strip of fiberglass cloth to tie the deck and hull to the hip braces.

Day 42 - reinforce the combing

Taking some of the leftover pieces of the cloth, I cut 3 strips, about 2-1/2" wide and glued them to the combing. I had to cut the strips where they overhung the inside of the cockpit and wrapped the material around. Found it was a lot easier to apply a coat of the resin on the boat first, then use my hand to smooth it out. The resin is still a bit of a mess to work with - but I'm getting better at it.

This picture is the back of one of the cockpits. Shows the weave of the fabric. After it cures overnight, I'll trim off the excess with a razor knife.






Here's all 3 holes.

Day 40 & 41 - More sanding & resin on combing

Over the past 2 days, used the belt sander, orbital sander, sanding block, sanding drum on my drill, surf-form, a couple files, and just plain old sand paper with my hands to smooth out the combing. Started off with 80 grit and worked up to 440 grit.




A few minutes with the shop vac to suck up the dust on the inside and outside of the boat - and there was gobs - I wiped down the area and double checked for any rough spots. Everything was smooth.




I put on a thin coat of resin to saturate the surface. It sure made the grain of the wood pop. My next step will be to take some of the fiberglass cloth, and wrap it around the combing. Enough for this weekend.

Day 39 - Upper combing

After nearly a week off, it was time to tackle the upper combing. The lower part had been curing for over a week. I sanded the top part a bit to allow the resin to bond better. Used the belt sander on the inside to take off a few high spots between the deck and the combing on the inside of the opening. Then spent around 30 minutes hand sanding the openings so it was nice and smooth. Don't want to get scraped up getting in and out. Plus, I will be adding some glass from the underside of the hull to the combing to help hold it all together. The last part of the sanding was to smooth out any rough spots on the bottom of the upper combing pieces. It got a bit bumpy when I put the clear coat of resin on.

After the sanding was completed, It was time to cut the upper combing. I clamped each piece, one a at a time, onto the combing and using my Japanese hand saw (need to get a picture of that saw), I trimmed and beveled the edges so the joints would match up. Only needed to do a little bit of finish sanding to align the joints during the final dry fit. It was then time to glue. Mixed up some resin, threw in some wood flour and clamped it all into place. Used 10 C clamps, 2 quick grip clamps, and 72 home made pipe clamps. It's now tucked in and curing for the evening.