More Decking

As usual, more scarf jointing, and heat bending to make the curve from the front of the cockpit to the rear. 
I used cedar for the outside edges, and the center. I was considering using cedar for the entire deck, but it would have been too boring, and I didn't know if I had enough material.
I plain-sawed the rest of my pawlonia, tuned up the surface planer, and made 8' x 3/4" strips. 

The plain-sawed wood yielded  some interesting grain figures.

I extended the center deck strips to a form beyond the extent of the cockpit opening. The "whiskey plank" on this side is heavily clamped/taped/wedged into position. I hope it makes the transition from the bottom to the top work.

The final, Official Whiskey Plank-more like a splinter than a board.

Starting The Deck

I flipped the boat using the usual "rope" technique.
Everything looked pretty good, except that there was a little "hump" in the design of the ends of the bow & stern. I puzzled for a while about how to strip around it for a while, then decided to sand it down. I know  that I can strip fairly without sticking to the forms 100%,

 I had to move form #5 in the bow, and form #14 in the stern to make the center strip run fair. I actually considered leaving them out, but it looked like a long stretch between forms. Again, I can manage to run fair strips without "slaving" to the forms.

Again, I used scab boards to straighten the narrow center strip. 
Observation and Revelation 😉 : If it looks straight, it is straight. In the end, your eye will tell you if something is or isn't straight or fair. In the past, I have come up with involved methods to align things by measurement, that looked crooked when done. Let the straight strips be straight! 😉

Hull Work

I hadn't milled enough pawlonia, so back to sawing. This time I plain-sawed the 1" board and split the 1" strips in half, rather than making a 5/8" strip and wasting 1/4". 

This saved wood & gave me a lot of slim strips. Progress across the hull seemed very slow!
Stems. I sawed several 3/4 x 1/8" pine boards, and made a bending jig of Masonite:

Didn't work well. The strips tended to crack instead of bending, when heated.
I found that the strips I was using for the stem lamination were really too thick to make the curve, and I had to re-do the stems with really thin strips. 

Shaping. Going routinely.

Working With Chairs

"And now for something Completely Different"...A 70's joke 😏
I acquired some old kitchen chairs, and decided to try my hand at weaving rush seats. They were in need of refinishing, so I cleaned & painted them.
Of course, found a video on YouTube. 

I painted this one with glossy polyurethane paint. The weaving was much more confusing than expected-many back-up-and-do-overs, and redo's seemed to redouble my confusion. I had a problem keeping the laps square, so I ended up with a nasty space toward the middle.

Second chair. This one is painted with a more sensible Rustoleum spray paint. This time I got the whole thing covered. I learned how to unravel the material a little bit & make it wider to fill spaces, and finally got a feel for the weaving pattern.

Third chair. A little better. I got the strands in a little tighter on the edges and fewer noticeable gaps in the weave. I now realize that it takes more than three chairs practice to get the weave looking  neat. 😏

Redux of the first chair. I learn a few more details every time. This time I discovered that I can wet the material more than I previously thought, for "molding". I kept the tension on the strands  throughout the process.

Sawing

Interestingly, it seems that all of the wood for this build will be plain-sawed.

Sawing a cedar 2 x 4 in the driveway. The 14' board was too long & heavy to control on the table saw, so I tried this arrangement. This is the first time that I actually used that edge guide for the circular saw to good effect. 

Cheaters in Pawlonia

I ran the usual full-length strip out to the ends of the form. I got it all the way out to forms 2 and 16 before letting it run out. The 3/16" x 5/8"   pawlonia strips are more flexible than cedar.

On the stern, I only needed two cheaters to fill in the gap. It seemed easy to plane & sand the pawlonia. As far as matching the strips for scarf joints, etc. goes, it all seems to be about the same color, except for some brownish grain pattern.
The pine and pawlonia are almost the same color. I'm hoping that they will contrast  more after finishing and ageing.

Filling in between the sheer and waterline strips. I think that the waterline strip may be visible where the differently-grained pawlonia strips end at it. 
Pleasantly surprised that the pawlonia responds to heat bending even better than cedar. The only theory I can think of is that it contains less lignin than cedar, and "less lignin" is easier to heat up than "more lignin"? 

First Strips

I found some leftover pine and milled 3/16 x 3/8 strips.

I was surprised/pleased to see that the strips fell on the sheer & waterline strips almost perfectly fair, with very little need for adjustment. I also repeated last year's technique for aligning the keel strip.
My pawlonia wood also came in. Nice stuff! The boards are a full  1" thick, planed, not the usual "one inch" that's really 3/4". I looked at it a while to figure out how to work it. I decided to plain-saw the boards, then saw to 5/8". The grain pattern isn't really that strong from either side.
The boards I ordered are 8'. Its going to be Scarf Joint City. 😉

Setting Up

I assembled two sections of Box Beam, with an extra 1' space in between, to make a 17' beam. I almost forgot how heavy and cumbersome it is to set up, but I got it done. I sanded the top and gave it a coat of white paint to aid in marking.
These plans call for the use of an internal beam, but I decided to improvise a little and do it on a ladderback. I found the form with the greatest distance between the waterline and the bottom edge, and marked that distance on a ruler. 

I aligned that form directly to the top string, and every form that same distance from the waterline to the string. The rocker falls into place naturally. Interestingly, the forward half of this kayak has considerably more rocker than the aft.

I somehow found the finagling & leveling easier than it used to be. 5/8" MDF would have been easier to handle than 3/4", but I couldn't find any.

I found this easier also. After measuring the rocker, I eyeballed the "knife" edge to the string. The waterline mark is really short on this form, so I leveled by placing the level vertically on the "blade" part of the assembly, and the station form. As usual, I used a mini-bracket to support the weight and align the tip of the form to the string.

Forms

At this point, I normally wouldn't make a post about cutting out the forms, but I tried a new way of doing it.

I tried cutting them out on a scroll saw, in order to cut closer to the line than I can with the jigsaw. This is 3/4" MDF, and the scroll saw struggles with it a little, but it definitely made sanding to the line easier. If I had the skill/guts, I could cut right to the line with the scroll saw. It was also a good way to cut the "split" forms apart. Speaking of which, I managed to lose one half of form 17, and had to make another one by tracing from the other side

Starting A New Build

I got plans for a Cape Ann Storm SLT. I had/have some trepidation about the small size.
One the one hand:
 The max paddler weight is 160, and I now weigh a whopping 167.
 The max loading weight is 200, and I may come close to that, including gear.
 The performance might be lousy at the max weight.
 It might be an uncomfortable fit.
On the other hand:
 Vaclav's plans always seemed to run a little larger than expected.
 Vaclav's limits & dimensions are based more on technical data than practice.
 I sought advice on Nick's message board, and the "experts" assured me that it would be fine.
 I'll finally be building the small, "grab & go" kayak.
 I'm trying to lose 10 pounds this winter.
 If its too small, someone else might find it appropriate.😉
I'm also going to try pawlonia for the hull.

Outer Island "Emergency" Repair

Went for a three-hour paddle in R.I. yesterday. A fine trip, until I loaded the kayak on the car. I rested the hear hatch on my head, and the hatch rim broke! I thought the boat seemed kind of heavy when I took it out-there was a good deal of water in the aft compartment, which at first, I thought (hoped) might be condensation, but there was none in the forward compartment. At home, I found the aft rim trashed/saturated/delaminated. The rear bulkhead was also delaminating. 
This put me into a frenzy of repairs, since I'm hosting a paddle to Selden Island Saturday. Actually, its lucky that it happened Thursday, and I had time for repairs. It would have been a drag if it had happened Saturday morning, on the way to the paddle.
Wow, I guess that all it takes is a pinhole in the (@#$&!) plywood to trash the plywood-just as happened with the skeg box, At first, I feared that my skeg box repair might be leaking, however, I now recall that the aft hatch looked a little "sunken" for a while, and lots of water must wash over the rear deck.
I might need to find a new way to treat plywood with epoxy.
I replaced the hatch lip the same way that I originally built it. I now think that some one of the parts must have not been epoxied well, started leaking, and let lots of water in. The water then found its way into the bulkhead. After the Selden Island paddle, I went to work on the bulkhead. It too, was disintegrating. This time, I tried fiberglassing 1/8" ply with 2 oz. glass, hoping that it might seal the plywood better that way. I also started the fillets from the compartment side of the bulkhead, and did a smooth fillet on the cockpit side.
I hope that I learned something from this 😌

Enders Island Again

I paid a visit to Enders Island, not by kayak, but just to relax. I felt that it deserved its own post as a destination itself, not just a kayak landing spot.

Hmm.

Inside the church, stained glass.

Relics. The place where they are is like a little shrine-I almost felt funny taking pictures in there. They were hard to see, but I think that the small ones might be tiny relics, like hair?

And the one that creeps people out...

St Edmund's Arm. 

Back outside, the weather was perfect, and the grounds beautiful:

There are many benches & etc. with memorials on the grounds.

I knew this fellow years ago. Its a nice memorial, but slightly ironic, because he was never called "Rocky" or "Rock"! 

Finally Starting The Season

I uh..."disposed" of the Redfish. Physically easy, but mentally difficult.

It finally stopped raining, and I ditched work. Went for a "light" paddle on Powers Lake. Felt fairly good about it. I had been lifting (small) weights to prepare, but discovered that it was the core muscles that needed work.😉

Tuning Up The Outer Island, Again

I put the pieces of the Golden "aside", broke the strongback down, cleaned up a bit, and put the O.I. on sawhorses.

I decided to add a strip of 4 oz. glass at the bow & stern.
Last year, I did relatively light sanding before varnishing. This year, I went right at it with the R.O.S, and realized just how thick the varnish is! In the future, I may sand more before each re-varnishing. More sanding results in hitting the fiberglass in more places, but I'm re-epoxying the bare spots.
Repairing the bare-glass spots went well. I applied one coat of epoxy, scraped lightly, then another coat of epoxy, wider than the first, before sanding. Blended in well.
Varnishing went well, using my favorite masking technique. I thought that the weather was un-cooperative: occasional rain and 60% humidity in the basement, but all coats dried in 24 hours. Another discovery: it is the thinner that stanks so bad, not the varnish. First coat 50/50, second coat about 70/30, and third coat about 85/15. The third coat barely smells.

Sadly, Project Aborted

I have decided not to finish building this kayak, at least not at this time.
I simply could not get the deck and hull joined. The hull spread apart at the sheer, and three ideas that I had for bringing the parts together didn't work.
After meltdowns, I realized that there were just too many errors and things that I didn't like about the build, to go on. Its getting late, and I have to get the Outer Island ready for the water.
What I Don't Like About it:
Ugly. My idea for Plain-Jane stripping didn't really work, visually. The cockpit opening came out a strange shape. The actual design doesn't appeal to me, anyway.
Weight and Size. This was finally supposed to be my ultra-light-weight, "grab and go" boat, but I did things that made it heavier than I wanted it to be, and it's longer than I visualized.
I didn't really like using Joe's system for the strongback setup. I'm not as confident about the alignment.
I got started late, and felt time pressure since about New Year's. 
Well, there's always Next Year 😉
I still have the forms for the Dark Star, and I might consider it, but not before re-reading my post about why I didn't. 😯 Looked back at the Cape Ann Storm SLT-I didn't build it last time, because I was afraid that I weighed too much, but it wouldn't be the first time that I messed up by letting Kayak Foundry statistics tell me what to do.

Glassing The Hull

It may be the case that I have already peaked in Kayak Building skills. 😉
Fist discovery this morning was that the roll of fiberglass was not wide enough to cover the hull, even though I thought I had figured it out. A patch was necessary.
I warmed the resin for several hours in a hot water bath. I mixed up 1-1/2 cups, and started working on the stern section. I expected the resin to be warm, but I became aware that it was getting warmer on its own! Surprising, since I figured that the RAKA resin with the non-blush hardener would be slow-curing under any conditions-but I was holding a 16 oz. cup full of mixed resin. Panicking, I immediately dumped it on the hull. It was actually beginning to give off steam at this point. The area where I dumped it had a cloudy, weird look, which I think was caused by the resin becoming too stiff to saturate the glass properly. I thought about ripping it off to start over, but instead worked on it with a hair dryer. Much air came out, and eventually it looked almost right. I decided to live with it rather than to waste that much fiberglass and epoxy.
I went to smaller mixes, and did the rest of the hull with good results.
I did two "generous" fill coats, then scraped & sanded. I hit the fiberglass lightly in a few spots. I made a few minor discoveries. I had been in the habit of trying to skim on very thin coats of epoxy with a scraper, a squeegee, pieces of foam, etc, and always had trouble with air. I found that the Lowly Chip Brush puts a thicker coat on the boat, and for some reason, tipping off the job with the brush gets rid of air. It might be the case that my experience actually messed me up-if I had been slathering a thick coat with a chip brush, I'd have gotten better coats! I hit the glass badly in some spots on the last build, because I had been relying on the R.O.S. too much, and it was cutting off the high spots.
However, after hitting the glass in more places, I opted for two more skim coats of FLAG resin. 

Fairing The Hull

The year's time in between builds give me time to forget just how much work some of the tasks are! Setting the hull back up on the strongback and fairing the hull took the greater part of the day.
I may have given up un perfectionism. In previous build, I have found flaws after the fact, and wondered why I let them go. I now realize that I let them go because of fatigue and impatience. I also got tired doing this job, and left a few things that could have been done better. It will still be a kayak, I will still use it, and I won't know if its good until I do.

Hull Interior Work

I decided to leave off fairing the deck until its attached to the hull, and get to work on the hull interior.

As expected, there are gaps between the internal stem and the hull at both the bow and stern. I thought about cutting a piece out, but decided on filleting instead.

A hefty fillet was required to fill in the gap. It adds weight, but also adds strength.

Glassing the interior went pretty routinely. I made one discovery-I had trouble getting the glass to adhere near the sheer line last year because the glass wasn't well saturated enough. Its harder to see against the lighter colored wood.

After burying those internal stems in rather massive fillets, I decided on small end pours, just so I'll have something to drill through for the grab loops.

Skeg box in place.

Glassing the underside of the deck went routinely.

Deck Stripping

I'm using a lot of dark-looking cedar for the whole build. I usually get so absorbed in the technical aspects of stripping that I forget about fancy patterns, so this time I decided not to go for any accent stripes, just the whole deck similar. I have a jolly little dolphin inlay for a decoration.
As always, puzzled over the problem of how to make the transitions at the ends. 

I ended up stripping "intuitively", with an interesting pileup of fits and angles.

I end up with strips coming together like this. It looks familiar.

Stretch tape pulling things together.
Sometimes, I can't figure out or plan how to do a detail until I actually start working on it.

A perfect example arose when the deck strips laid from the center  started approaching the strips laid from the sheer. I could see that there would be a considerable drop down to the deck level, but I just kept adding strips until I saw what I needed to do.

I don't even call this a "whiskey" plank, because it was Beyond Whiskey ;) I have a clamp bending the top strips down to the deck level, and several clamps trying to make the strips come together. I hope it holds!
It held together just fine, but it produced a sort of concave curve down to the deck. It won't show well in a photo. I puzzled for a while about figuring out a way to push the curve out, but its the same on both sides, and I was afraid of messing it up, so I'm leaving it.
The height difference between the fore and aft edges of the cockpit opening is almost 7", so I'm going for a molded fiberglass rim.

Hull Work

Again, I decided to do some of the fairing work on the hull before turning the boat over. It just seems to go better with the boat still on all the forms. 

Of course, I worried about the fairness of the stems and keel line, but I always do. The shape of this kayak is much different that any I've built before. It looks "fat" in the area between midpoint and stern, and the chine is harder. 
Here, I have wet the stern area down  for scraping & sanding. I always forget just how much sanding is required to get the strips looking good.  

Stems

When I laid the center strip. I had some kind of intuition that I should overlap it on the internal stem. It seems to have worked out well, although you can see the joint if you look closely.

The stem layups that I made earlier din't even come close to fitting, so I fell back on the "old" technique. I planed basswood down to 1/8" x 3/4", and set the first strips with dookie.

Layers 2,3, and 4 were glued with Titebond. A little heat bending was needed at the ends, which was easy with these this strips. I'm always amazed at the amount of clamping pressure that can be achieved with several laps of shrink wrap.

The four layers looked huge.

I ground the basswood down to the angle of the hull, and was surprised at how much smaller the stem became-about 2 layers ended up sawdust! The stem seems to be blending into  the center strip fairly well.

Stern. More fairing to be done, especially that whoop-dee-doo curve in the middle.
Generally, this is going quite well, and I think its going to look nice.

More Stripping

The instruction manual advocates some type of stripping technique I'm unfamiliar with, sort of how Vaclav cuts in inlays, but I decided to go at it by bending strips with the heat gun.

There was a considerable twist necessary at the stern-the stern stem is narrow and skeg-like.

A spot where I had to improvise a little. I had trouble getting the strips to reach the internal stem, so I beveled & glued them to each other. when I started shaping the ends. they were too far apart to be covered by a 3/4" strip, so I pulled them together and glued in a piece of strip.

Another improvisation. I glued a center strip on top of the first, so I'd have a place to glue subsequent strips. I hope that the picture is more descriptive than my words!

I figured out a new way to get the center strip aligned straight. I had noticed in previous build that it always looked straight after the first two strips were glued to it, so this time, instead of struggling to get the center strip straight by itself, I cut and planed the two bottom strips before nailing the center strips in. I placed the strips in (dry),checked the center strip for alignment then tacked in the center strip. Looks very straight!