Thursday, September 18, 2008

Steady Progress

I got a couple of hours on the kayak yesterday. I laid fillets of epoxy thickened with micro balloons laid down the joints. These fillets are not so much structural as to provide a gentle transition from one panel to another. I did all three seems on the forward half of the boat.

Once the fillets were in place, I laid lengths of the glass tape on the still uncured fillets and then wetted the tape out with straight epoxy.

I'm finding the epoxy part of the process quite a challenge, and although I'm learning lots, I'm afraid that the kayak won't be too pretty when I'm done. I'm gaining confidence in mixing the filleting or jointing additives thick enough not to run and slump, but getting the tape to sit nice and flat is also a problem. I'll not worry too much about the seams that will be hidden in the fore and aft air tight chambers, but I suspect I have a lot of difficult epoxy sanding and smoothing to do to the mid section that will be seen through the cockpit opening. I hope I can make a neater job of the outer seams.

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