Max does Quality Control

Max oversees the sanding work and carefully inspects Luke's work. Look how smooth the hull looks!!!

Sanding Take 1

After a Saturday morning trip to Home Depot we are now the proud owners of a Random Orbital Sander. After the fiberglass dried we flipped the hull over and clipped off all of the copper wires. (Yes parts of the wire are trapped in the fillets but that is ok.) Then the sanding began. Luke spent most of Sunday sandling the hull. The edges must be rounded to help the fiberglass that goes on the outside of the hull lay flat. No pictures here as saw dust and digital cameras don't mix!

Glass

So after the guys did the fillets and taping on the bow. Friday night Susan joined in the fun and helped Luke with the stern section and the mid section of the boat. Once the fillets and the glass tape was done. The next step is to lay fiberglass cloth over the entire mid section of the cockpit.

Here is Luke carefully laying the cloth.

Then you carefully spread epoxy over the cloth.

Here is the boat with the fiberglass....pretty!

Team Work

So who says that boatbuilding is a solitary craft? Fellow naval architects Matt and J had to come investigate our progress Thursday night. With 6 trained hands Susan and Chelsea supervised.

The next step to freeze the shape of the hull and prepare a surface for the fiberglass tape. This is done with fillets. A fillet is epoxy thickened with wood flour to a peanut butter consistency. This mixture is squeezed along the seems between the panels and the n spread smooth.

Once the fillets are down the next step is to apply fiberglass tape over the fillet. Below is J wetting down the tape with epoxy.

Then here is Matt and Luke carefully laying down the fiberglass tape.

Fitting the bulkheads

As part of the fairing process, you must locate the bulkheads and check their fit. The primary purpose of the bulkheads is to give the kayak reserve stability - so that if the cockpit is filled with water, the kayak doesn't sink. They also give the hull some support and help get the shape correct. The forward bulkhead is in front of the cockpit, while the aft bulkhead is just behind the paddler.

On our first kayak (the Chesapeake 16 LT) - the aft bulkhead fit very well the first try. The forward bulkhead was a different story. The next two pictures show the problem.

You may notice that the bulkhead is tight at the top corners (the sheer), but has a big gamp at the bottom corner (the chine). The big gap at the chine would be difficult to fill (and make watertight), and the beam across the deck was a bit wider than the plans indicated it should be.

After a trip to Chesapeake Light Craft for consultation with the designer, we decided to move the bulkhead forward a bit (about 3 inches). This required trimming the upper corners of the bulkheads. The final product came out pretty well. The gap around the bulkhead was rather small, and fitting the bulkhead into the hull didn't require a lot of hull deflection.

True the Hull

So now that the hull is in one piece the next step was to true the hull. This took some patience from Sunday - Tuesday night. In this process we look to see that there aren't any hollows in the shape and check to see that the hull does not have any twist in it.



To do this the kayak is suspended with clamps above the saw horses. Then long pieces of wood are placed across the boat. Using your eyes and a level you work to get the sticks pararllel which assures there are not any twists between the saw horses. Any hollows or bumps in the hull are adjusted by loosening or tightening the copper wires. This process takes a while to get right. The keel line (bottom of hull on centerline) needs some fairing. Hollows can be taken out by loosening the keel wires and pushing wedges between the panels. This puts a little more 'V' in the hull and lowers the keel slightly.

It is starting to look like a boat!

Saturday continued.... Once the bottom was aligned with the sides we both worked from bow to stern on each side stitching the panels together.




So its a boat. A spikey boat...but definitely a boat!

Stitching

So Saturday was a busy day. About 4 or 5 hours of work. Here is the summary. First we drilled holes along both sides of the bottom panels and wired the straight keel edge. Next we stitched the ends of the sides together.

Then we opened up the side panels...

and then placed the bottom panels onto of the sides and opened them like a book along the stitched keel.

Luke then drilled holes along the edge of the side panels that aligned with the holes on the bottom panels.

Susan prepares for the next step

After letting the sheer clamps cure for 24 hours we removed the clamps and and we pleased to discover that we did not epoxy the two sides together. Not major mess ups just yet (knock on okoume plywood!) The tape came off to reveal two beautiful sides. Below is Susan just giving the edges a light sand so they will be ready for the next step...STICHING. It will look like a boat soon. Stay tuned.

Luke admires his hard work.

Max Lends a Hand...I mean Paw

Max the kitten loves Kayaks and he really wants to help out. Too bad his idea of helping out is chewing on the plywood.

Attaching the Sheer Clamps

Next step is to attach the sheer clamps to the side panels. These are stiff 1 inch x 1 inch x 15 feet long pieces of wood that are epoxied to the top of the side panels that allow you to attach the deck to the sides and then allow you to fasten deck hardware to the deck. It is a pretty complicated step that involved tapeing off the side panels so they don't stick together or get epoxy on the outside. Then we had to measure and mark where the sheer clamps line up on the side panels. Then we mixed the epoxy and carefully placed the sheer clamps on the sides and clamped them all together with lots of C clamps and PVC Clamps...lots. That was easier to say then it was to do.

Scarfs....not the kind that keep you warm

After unpacking the 3 small boxes for Susan's kayak (the Chesapeake 16LT) Luke carefully inspects all of the pieces.

Next task is taking the 8 foot lengths of okoume plywoods and turning them into 16 foot lengths. This is done by applying epoxy thickened with silica on the scarfs, angled cuts on one end of each piece of plywood. Some say Luke has set a new bar with the quality of the scarf joints. Check it out...almost like magic and it is one long piece of very thin plywood.

Winter Project

So our weekends and weeknights and pretty much any extra free time we have this Winter will be spent building kayaks. We have purchased kits from Chesapeak Light Craft and will be constructing a Chesapeae 16LT for Susan and a Sheerwater 17 for Luke. We know lots of you are eager to follow along with us here in the basement of 44 Cedar. Stay tuned for good times to come.

A Blog for 2007

After writing a pretty brief Christmas letter I realized that I should find a better way to keep friends and familly posted on what we are up to. So here it is...Luke and Susan's Blog. Stay tuned for stories and pictures of our latest adventures.

2007 promises to be a great year!