Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Hatches, Footbraces, Deck and Hull

Almost finished taping..

The deck and hull are connected with 2 inch fiberglass tape. It's best
to tape the 2 pieces of the kayak together, and then fiberglass the inside first.
That way the 2 pieces will line up very nicely.


The deck and hull are ready to be connected!!!


In this picture and the next one above, the hatches are finished.
They came out very smooth!



After the hatches were cut out, I taped them up with wax paper. Then
hotglued and taped them back in. With the deck upside down, I put on
the 5 layers of fiberglass.
4 layers of fiberglass and a bit of thicked epoxy are used to
make the hatch recess lip. It'll be trimmed back to 3/4 -1 inch.



Inside of the hull is all fiberglassed!!

The foot braces are held on with 1.5 inch head bolts. Fiberglass and epoxy
holds on the bolts, that way no bolts are showing outside the hull.

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Monday, May 17, 2010

Cutting Hatches

Today I cut out the hatches. The plans for the kayak came
with a paper cutout so that I'd know how big to make them.
So basically, I just centered the cutout, and put tape under it.
Then I traced them with a permanent marker and cut
them out. I used a jig saw with a fine metal blade. Some
people use handmade Japanese handsaws, but a jigsaw
works good for me!

In this picture you can see the cross section of the deck.
The fiberglass on the inside of the deck is much thicker
than on the outside. It is about 1/4 inches thick.