Shawn and Dan Baker's Chesapeake 17 Building Journal
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![]() Here is another area I used too much epoxy (excess weight) on. When wetting out fiberglass, use a squeegee, and only use enough epoxy to wet it out. I didn't know the difference then, but my glass was floating in the pools of excess resin. I also filled the weave on this glass, which is unnecessary inside the boat. We then fit the fore and aft bulkheads in place with a fillet of thickened epoxy and some glass tape on either side. Great Falls, MT got a cold snap, so we had to hang the boats up until we could at least heat the shop to 70 degrees and glass the hulls and install the decks. The boats were decked with -3mm doorskins. I know CLC doesn't recommend using doorskins for kayak building, but we figured the deck didn't need as much structure as the hull, and we had hoped to shave off 3 or 4 pounds. However, as a beginning boatbuilder, I overbuilt it, so the weight savings weren't there! With the bulkheads and deckbeams, though, the deck is well-supported. I did have to add a patch of glass over my knees, as I was cracking the deck with upward pressure when I rolled the boat. It works well now. Doorskins, with some minor reinforcement, are an adequate substitute for Okoume for deck material. We neglected to use the CLC-recommended ring shank nails, and instead tried to substitute duct tape and bungie cords. This wasn't enough, so we used a few steel paneling nails. The decking process was a bit stressful, so we didn't pause to capture the "Kodak moment"! We did deviate from the plans schedule a bit in decking the boat before glassing the hull. This way, the hull glass covers the edge surface of teh deck, and when sanding down the edge of the deck, no glass is sandwd away, either. |
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Copyright © 1999 Shawn W. Baker