Outfitting

Due to the "furlough", I'm already outfitting the kayak, and it isn't even April yet.
It occurred to me today, that I am much too used to doing things "fast", and that I now have plenty of time for details and do-overs.

I decided to actually do the drill/fill/re-drill thing on the holes in the deck. In the past, I had drilled the holes to size, epoxied the hole, and put the bolt through. On the Outer Island, I can see dark spots where water penetrated the wood. This time, I actually drilled the hole oversize, filled the  hole with epoxy, and drilled to size. When I drilled, I got only epoxy chips, so I'm thinking that it works better this way.
I decided that hatch the rim needs more sanding, and another coat of paint.

Skeg control. I had almost forgotten how tedious it is to put this together. I neglected to prevent epoxy & varnish from going into the holes, so spent quite a while reaming them out. Something didn't quite jibe regarding the length of the inner tube, and the travel of the cable necessary  to make the skeg go up & down-the inner tube popped out of the outer tube when the skeg was all the way down. I think it may be because this skeg is smaller than the design size. The little black gizmo on the right stops the knob from going down all the way and pulling the inner tube out. All this makes much more sense in practice than in print 😀

I decided on a new way of doing the deck rigging, besides the usual criss-cross pattern. I figured that all I really use the rigging for is to hold my wet bag & pump, and these will do the job. I got the through-deck plugs online. The bungee cord is simply knotted under the deck.

The backband was saved from the kayak that I donated to charity two years ago. I also saved the seat,  which with an adjustment to the width, worked out fine. The side braces seemed to have come out angled inward a little, which seems strange since I leveled the kayak and plumbed the braces. Made some fancy angle cuts on the table saw.

Varnishing In Winter

Work is progressing very fast. My workplace is closed due to the coronavirus, and I'm shut in.

I've never been as far as varnishing in the month of March. And wouldn't you know, the mild weather ended today, it was 35 degrees and snowing. My hygrometer in the basement read 44%, so I went ahead for a first coat. Seems to have gone adequately well.

Another almost accidental "revelation"- Epiphanes varnish and thinner barely smell! In the past, I had been using Interlux varnish with their 333 thinner, and it made a mighty/scary/toxic stench. I made a coat, then fled the house for the day. I just made a coating with the Epiphanes a few hours ago, and can't smell a thing. 
The Hygrometer never went over 55%, so I went on with all coats. Varnishing is a P.I.T.A. no matter how well or badly I do it.😏

Sanding Outdoors

...On the ridiculously early date of March 20. I have no idea why the work is proceeding so quickly.

A chance to see the two kayaks side by side shows that the SLT is indeed "little", but mainly in length, not volume. This messy job went fairly quickly. 

Details

The skeg control box and footbrace kit went routinely, no photos necessary. Trying to figure out a really good way to paint the cockpit rim.
Normally, I don't like to digress much from the topics of building/using kayaks, but things have gone Somewhat Crazy due to the Coronavirus. My workplace is shut down for two weeks. As everyone is encouraged to stay home, I'm glad that I have a stay-at-home project to occupy me. However, I need to learn to stop multitasking and budgeting time! 😉

Bulkheads

I used junky 1/8" plywood from the lumber store. It was painted on one side, and I glassed both sides with 2 oz. Having no luck in using any station form for a template, I resorted to the plumbing solder technique. The seemed to go in crooked-I think that they were  too flexible. I seem to remember using 1/4" ply in the past. Maybe I'll give foam another try next time.