25-09-11: The skeg II

I have glued the skeg box (i have no idea what this is called in english) to the hull. I have thickened the epoxy with saw dust.

The skeg box is held in place with tape on the upper and underside.

Just outside my shed this giant spider was lurking... 
Its body was the size of my index fingernail. Its a cross spider and they are very common at this time of year. Luckily we have no poisonous spiders here in Denmark...

23-09-11: The Cockpit coaming IV/ the skeg I

The coaming is now almost done. I have sanded it and it feels just right. The only thing missing is some reinforcement with fiberglass. I will try to place fiberglass round the coaming to the inside.

I am preparing to put the skeg in place. It is quite scary to start cutting into the hull. But I have lined up with tape and a string so what could possible go wrong ?....

And .. tadaaaa.. a fine slit for the skeg. I was not as difficult as I had imagined...

18-09-11: The Cockpit Coaming III

I have reinforced the coaming with fiberglass and the dark western red cedar shows through the glas.

Starting to glue the first strip to the coaming. I have chosen to use epoxy here because of the forces this coaming is subjected to.

Second layer of the coaming lamination. I use dark and light wood in turn.

Againg: It is impossible to have to many clamps while building....

15-09-11: The Cockpit Coaming II

Ready to steam a couple of strips for the cockpit coaming. A few minutes in the steam is enough.

It was difficult to place the clamps. The distance to the top of the coaming was to big. Trimming  the height will make it easier to place the clamps.

11-09-11: The Cockpit Coaming I

I have now glued the cockpit coaming to the deck of the kayak. I mixed the epoxy with some sawdust, but I am not happy with the look of it.

Its very rough and uneven. A quick grind with sandpaper took the worst and my plan is to place a small strip of wood shavings on the transition from deck to coaming.
I got some western red cedar strips from a friend and have tried to make nice long shaving. 

After placing the shavings in water I taped and pressed the strips to a newspaper to dry.

I have glued the strips to the coaming and deck. Hopefully the outcome will be OK...

05-09-11: Fiberglassing inside of the deck

Here is the result from last nights work. I have trimmed of the edges. The hull weighs 10.6 kg after the fiberglassing.

Today I glassed the inside of the deck. It was a lot easier than glassing the hull.

There was a bit of epoxy left and I could not resist to try to dye the epoxy with some coloring paste I had. I think the color paste is water based so I am not too optimistic....

04-09-11: Fiberglassing the inside of the hull

After sanding with the angle grinder I sanded again by hand a couple of times - Hard work!

In the evening I prepared to fiberglas the inside of the deck and hull. I layed out the fiberglas cloth and hold it in place with a few pegs.

I have no pictures of the process. It was a bit of a tease because of the narrow angle in the bow and stern. When trying to distribute the epoxy I pulled the cloth out of the bow and stern. But with a lot of patience I finally got it done. I had figured it would take about an hour but it took a lot more than that.

03-09-11: Sanding and priming the inside

Today I started sanding the inside of the deck and hull. I tried all the powertool sanders i have but none was able to sand in the concave shape on the inside. So I started sanding manually by hand. After ½ hour I had had enough. I took the deck outside and sanded it with my angle grinder with a  flap disc. The hull had the same treatment. I takes a very gentle touch and it is not easy to make the surface even.

After sanding with the grinder I sanded again with a sanding block and hard work.

When priming with epoxy I this time used a foam roller. It worked well. I used 150g epoxy on the deck and  220g epoxy on the hull. I thinned down the epoxy with ethanol before rolling it out.