A Momentus Occasion

No not the launch, not quite.

I finally got some paint on the hull.  The sanding of the first load of exterior bog was completed last week, and the second fill on the underside was hard enough to sand at the weekend.  I made a start, but was otherwise engaged and so am now a little more behind.

Sunday was spent fixing a couple of things on the Land Rover to get it through the 6-monthly Warrant of Fitness certification that is required in New Zealand.  The relatively straight forward job of changing the power steering belt became an epic due to seized bolts.  The other job I knew had pitfalls associated with it.  I learnt so much in the process of completing the drop arm ball joint fix that I posted my findings here in the hope of my experience being useful to others tackling the same task. 

Anyway, last night I finished sanding the second fill and then I started preparing to paint.  I washed the bottom down with a warm solution of liquid sugar soap to degrease, remove the dust and any amine blush (a waxy emission from cured epoxy), then rinsed with plenty of water and allowed the boat to dry.

I then applied a coat of Taubmans UnderProof Acrylic Primer Undercoat.  This is a water-based acrylic with what smells like an amount of latex added to prevent bleeding through to the top coat.  I'm going to be using Taubmans Living Proof Indoor/Outdoor Acrylic Enamel Gloss as the top coat.  The reasons to use house paint rather than marine enamel like I tried for the cockpit interior are twofold.  Firstly, the marine enamel requires 24 hours between coats, whereas the acrylic enamel requires only an hour or two.  Secondly, the smell of the marine enamel was awful, even with the garage door closed it could be detected on walking passed while the boat dried inside.

Obviously there is a Christmas break coming, and we are off on a family camping trip until after New Year's, so the launch will definitely be in 2009.  I'm also pretty certain it will be in January of that year.

No Longer Without a Paddlle

At the weekend I finally plucked up the courage to cut the flats on the end of the paddle loom.  The profiles don't match exactly and one is cut a little too deep where the ply blade is supposed to come up flush to the loom, but its too late now as the parts are stuck together with waterproof polyurethane builder's glue and its all cleaned up ready for varnish.  Its not the thing of beauty I had in my mind's eye, but should be good enough to ensure forward motion is maintained.  Lets call it the paddle Mk I.

Last night I finished the main fairing compound application to the hull.  I'm now out of epoxy pretty much and have developed a loathing for mixing thick fairing compound; it takes longer to mix than it does to spread over the boat.

So I can spend a couple of short evenings painting the seat and vanishing the paddle.  Then, at the weekend, its out with the power sander and I can turn all that laboriously mixed and applied fairing compound into dust.

Meanwhile, in the Garden...

Here's a little mini-project that I did on Sunday while a load of epoxy was curing on the boat.

We had a few sunflower seedlings that needed to be planted up, but really had nowhere in the garden prepared for them, so they had to go in pots.

We also have a good number of strange, octagonal, terracotta pipes in the basement, 400mm long with a 100mm diameter circular bore.

I closed of the bottom end with a disk of tanalised timber, nailed through 4 holes drilled around the bottom end of each pipe.  I added 10 metres of thick sisal rope and 10 metres of thinner sisal cord and this is what I came up with.  

Sorry for the fuzzy image, it was pitch black on the viewfinder and a bit too dark for the autofocus it would seem.

Coaming Lip

Although I don't have a spray deck, or know how to Eskimo roll, I want to include a lip on the cockpit coaming to hold a spray deck in due course.  If I'm to try and cross the Rangitoto Channel in this home built contraption, then I really don't want to get swamped half way across.

To this end, I made a crown of pins all around the coaming and balances a length of 8mm knitted synthetic rope on this, with the odd extra pin tensioning the rope.  The rope had first been dipped in straight epoxy resin to soak it.

The pins are now removed and I've started the lengthy process of smoothing (or fairing) the outside of the hull in preparation for painting.  There is nothing to add to the kayak now really, just filler and paint.  I need to paint the seat and find some closed cell foam to pad it, and I still haven't got round to making a paddle yet.