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The deck is trimmed to about a 1/4" from the hull. I masked the areas of the butt joints with packing tape and glued them with Cab-o-sil thickened epoxy. I filleted "this side" of the aft bulkhead to the deck. And lastly, for the evening, I filled the gap at the deckbeam with wood-flour thickened epoxy and a layer of fiberglass tape. I don't think I would have completed as much last night had it not been for Chris' swiftness with the jigsaw! It's very amusing to consider that it took him less than 10 minutes what would have taken me maybe an entire hour-- and disturbing the neighbors at that! At least I trimmed half of the port side by myself, which took me 15 minutes. Then Chris wanted to have a try at it, and ended up taking care of the rest, finishing the job in less than 10. We used a sheet of 1/4" hard board (12" x 24", from the same hard board I used to make the template for the deck's radius) to protect the hull from a potentially misguided blade, and it worked like a charm! Chris can now be recorded in my kayak's history as the first person after me to partake in it's construction : ). I'm very thankful for his assistance, and didn't mind sharing the task-- if anything, I'll need to reserve my strength and tenacity for the impending marathon with the block plane, take 2. (I'm having flashbacks of planing the sheer clamps!)
This weekend I will continue as planned with PART II of planing the excess deck, and rounding-over the deck-to-hull joint. My hopes are still high that I will have the opportunity to lay the fiberglass. : ) But first, while the kayak is upside down, I will crawl back under to give the deck's underside a couple o'coats of unthickened epoxy, and finish the gap on the other side of the deckbeam. I was given a heads-up by a knowledgable and experienced boat-builder that the underside of the deck needs more than a single layer of epoxy to protect it from the DREADED BLACK ICK. Apparently my CLC publication manuals are outdated, and there is no mention of additional epoxy coats to the underside. Thanks again to the CLC Forum, I am spared!
Here I am at the bulkhead, with the boat upside down... |
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latex-covered finger over the fillet... |
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the deckbeam and deck. |
the epoxy has hardened. |
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