Outer Island Refurbishment

 Instead of a new kayak this winter, I thought I would take a shot at re-fiberglassing the old O.I.

Started with the hatches, thinking that they could be replaced if it was a disaster. It seemed to be a disaster unfolding as I started working with the heat gun. Glue joints cracked, and the smaller hatch wanted to "reshape" itself.

However, after more sanding, it looked pretty nice. A lot of "patina" came off, and I remember the wood looking like this originally. Now I "have to" do the whole boat, so they won't look out of place 😉

Unfortunately, I didn't anticipate that they would curl inward, now that bare wood was exposed!

I fixed this, laboriously, with contoured pieces of wood to counteract the curl:

They came back to almost the original shape. I was preparing to make new hatch covers of  pawlonia wood, but decided to try and save the originals, for a better match.

I also decided, as part of the job, to remove the old skeg control box. It came out easily using the heat gun.

I figured that it would be crazy to try and match the original boards, so I made this patch of leftover pawlonia wood. Whatever I did would be "there" and "noticeable", so I tried to do something "neat and deliberate-looking"

Process of stripping. Still getting the hang of how much heat to use for how long, etc. Sometimes, big pieces come off with the epoxy and a little bit of wood, but grain tears out. The wood aged to the "patina" unevenly, and the wood looks more uniform when sanded down to its original color. I was pleased to see that little spots discolored by water damage sanded out easily. I settled on the technique of heating the work until the fiberglass pulled away from the epoxy, to avoid any more grain tearing out. I then had to go back, heat the epoxy, and use a putty knife & cabinet scraper. It occurred to me that I had put the 'glass on to stay years ago 😉

My Osprey inlay didn't survive the process. At first, it seemed as if I might be able to just get the glass & epoxy off, then sand, but chunks of the inlay started coming out. Plan B to follow.

This hatch lip also deteriorated as the rear hatch lip did a couple of years ago. These parts take a lot of exposure, as the gap between the hatch & deck usually fills with water. After removing the rotten pieces, I also discovered that the amount of putty that I used to glue in the spacer was inadequate, only forming a ridge about 1/2" wide. The rest of the spacer was apparently hanging out, unprotected, which is probably how the water got in.

Overzealous use of the heat gun caused the deck and hull to separate at this spot. The interior fiberglass strip must have been attached weakly. I reinforced the interior with a new strip, and noticed that the problem was probably caused by a difference in thickness between the two parts. Hopefully, I got everything coated well enough.

Sanding down to the bare wood is fairly tedious. Fairing board, longboard, etc. The area under the cockpit rim is particularly "difficult". 😏

Re-sanded with the R.O.S and 150 grit disc. Found another spot in the stern where the hull & deck separated. Also confirmed disintegration of the rear hatch lip. I think it may be that the junky ply I'm using has too many voids.

I masked the sheerline with duct tape, and fiberglassed the hull. It was a fairly routine job, with the typical Stress & Mess. I added two layers of 4 oz. reinforcement at the bow & stern spots most likely to be scuffed. 

Back to the deck. I decided to add a thin disc of plain veneer 1/2" wider than the onlay to hide my original routing mistakes. here it is, taped and stretch-wrapped down. I also held it down with foam blocks and more stretch wrap.

Some epoxy seemed to soak through the maple veneer (possibly a good thing), but a little light scraping took care of it. It seems like a thick buildup, but I think I can deal with it.

After fiberglassing. Its going to take a lot of epoxy to level this out. The veneer absorbed the epoxy somewhat unevenly, but that gives it an O.K. "vintage" look.

And how much epoxy it took to level out these two layers of veneer!

New hatch rim in place. I tried fiberglassing the rim & spacer, but it made the parts too stiff, so there are just generously slathered in epoxy. I haven't positively determined how the water gets into these yet, so I'm going to try 2 oz. fiberglass where the spacer meets the deck.

Couldn't get 2 oz. glass, so I tried it with 4 oz.

After coatings and sandings, these look pretty good. I hope/think that the fiberglass acts as a "medium" for the epoxy, insuring that no wood can be exposed.

Snowshoes

 I am planning to take a crack at re-fiberglassing the O.I. this winter,  but since its too early to start, I thought up a project for the interim: snowshoes. I had a lot of trouble finding plans-it was either low- cost snowshoes made of materials like plywood or PVC pipe, or "buy our beautiful kit for $175". No one had templates or much in the way of directions. I thought about laminating wood into a frame, but I couldn't figure out what size and shape to make it. I decided on "Ojibwa" or "Yukon" style shoes, and found some instructions.

 His photo. He's bending the wood incrementally by soaking in a bathtub of hot water. I printed this, took measurements, and did some math to figure out the positions of the cross beams.

I made the frames of 3/4x3/4 ash and rounded the outside edges on the router table.

The original instructions seem to be anti-power-tool. He cuts mortises with a hand saw, whittles a dowel by hand, and drills a round hole in the frame. I did mortise-and-tenon joints on the table saw. As an afterthought, I also put a small angle on the tenons to accommodate bending.

I cogitated for a while about whether to bend the wood in hot water, as shown in the photo above, or use the heat gun. I thought that the water bath might provide more even heating for a graceful curve, so I decided on that method-however the frames didn't fit in my tub! 😉

I tried the heat gun, but I couldn't get the pieces hot enough to bend. These frames are three times thicker than the 5/16" cedar strips I'm used to bending.

Plan C. I found a piece of 4" PVC pipe, glued an end cap on it, filled it with boiling water, and soaked the long pieces of the frame for 1 hour. The wood is held underwater with a rock.

After soaking for an hour, I assembled the parts & started clamping together. I found that I could bring the ends of the frames together, but it seemed like an awful lot of brute force-the wood wasn't taking a set to the bend at all, and the whole clamping arrangement "exploded" several times. I put a screw through one end. It seemed that I could have held it together with screws, but they would be doing a lot of work. Project shelved for now.

Back to the Old Drawing Board. I decided to try steaming.

This is similar to something I tried years ago. I had steam  coming out of the end of the pipe, but a lot leaked onto the hot plate & floor. I think that when people succeed at steam bending, they have a lot of very hot steam bombarding the wood, and I didn't. I also (foolishly) tried using the hose from my Shop Vac, and ruined it. 😕 

Back to the pipe full of hot water for about two hours. I noticed, after scrapping this technique the last time, that the wood had actually taken a little bit of a set, so I tried again. This time I succeeded in getting screws through both ends. 

I tried several methods for bending the tips-heat gun, weights, hot water et cetera, until I actually looked back at the web page, and noticed that they had shaved off a considerable amount of wood-like about half, where they wanted it to bend. I cut more wood off and tried this arrangement:

Rather brutal, but it was the first method that actually produced noticeable, permanent bending.

I had sort of given up on this project a few days ago, and ordered a snowshoe kit, with pre-made frames. My next plan was to complete this project with the intention for giving them to a friend, but it seemed like they were coming out way too big!  I'm going to start again, smaller.

The second edition, smaller. The first ones were 55" long, these are 48". Some parts came out better, like the rounding-over, but I slightly over-did the angle on the mortises.

I found a more convenient cabinet door to do the bending under. Learned a lot about wood bending, for example, that hot water really does penetrate the wood more deeply than hot air (heat gun) on the bigger pieces.

After I bent the second shoe, I realized that I had bent it more than the first one, and had to re-bend the first one to match! 😖

Paracord webbing of the toe section. Oh Boy. Very steep learning curve here. The closest thing I've done is the seat webbing on chairs, but this is much more complicated. I had major frustration finding an instructional video that didn't suck, and when I did, it was still frustrating to follow. Its hard to learn and hard to teach. There might be a mistake or two, but I'm going to live with them.

 In the meantime, my kit arrived. Very nice shape and neat woodworking. I went back to the videos for the lacing, which only got "easier" very slowly! After the usual frustration an do-overs, got it reasonably "right" and "acceptable".

Completed wrap of the first pair. I tried soaking them in hot water, to see if the Paracord would shrink, and it worked great! Tight as a tennis packet. 

After the first brush coat of Helmsman Spar Polyurethane. The tubular nylon webbing really did soak up the goo a lot. The Paracord was a little easier to saturate. It seems like a long time since I brush-coated anything with poly. The poly really does shrink when it dries, tightening up the weave.