Wacko Ways to Build a Boat

Over the last two nights I have installed the port and starboard foot brace studs. These are threaded studs welded onto a flat, round plate with holes in them. You position them according to the instructions and then bed them into thickened epoxy. On top of the thickened epoxy you wet out a 4" x4" layer of fiberglass. When dry the studs are solidly fixed to the sides. On my last kayak I can tell you that I put A LOT of pressure at times on those foot peddles and they never came loose. The studs are a nice alternative to drilling holes through the sides of your boat to mount the foot braces. Because I'm so tall I moved the position of the foot brace studs 1" forward. It's not much, but I'm also planning on putting my seat back as far as possible. So hopefully by moving the foot pegs forward and the seat aft I will have plenty of room! This is the stud bedded into thickened epoxy but before the 4" x4" tape went on top. If you look closely you ca

One final step happened last night and that was to trim the excess fiberglass from the inside of the hull. In the past this step has been hit or miss. This time it was a hit! I ran a brand new Exacto blade along the hull right underneath the tape to cut through the fiberglass while it was in the "green stage". Then I simply pulled up on the tape and the excess fiberglass and it all came up easily! Here is what it looked like afterwards. Next step is to install the foot brace studs. Aloha!

One of the trickiest steps to do is to fiberglass the inside of the hull. It's much more touchy than doing the outsides where the cloth drapes over the hull. In this case the cloth either wants to bunch up inside the hull or pull out of the seams. It's a challenge to get the cloth to stay down in the seams. I did OK, but not great. The cockpit area looks OK but there are spots in the rest of the hull where I left too much epoxy or where the cloth is still coming out of the seams. Overall it's fine, but still annoying to see an small bit here and there that won't stay down. The manual says to use a roller and wet out the cloth. Skip the roller. It simply pulls up the cloth. A better way I've found is to use two squeegees. Pour the epoxy into the middle of the hull and spread it out with a squeegee. When the cloth is fully wetted out then you can squeegee the excess epoxy from the cloth by holding one squeegee on edge in the middle seam and using the other one t

One last step tonight before tomorrow's big glue job of epoxying the inside of the hull. Tonight I fitted the fiberglass into the hull and taped it to the sides. ALTERNATIVE STEP FROM THE OFFICIAL PYGMY MANUAL: My biggest suggestion in this step that varies from the official Pygmy manual is buy an additional 18' or so of fiberglass cloth from Pygmy! The official manual has you use two overlapping scraps of cloth. It's just sorta cheap and could potentially leave you with an ugly area of overlapping but not perfectly flat glass. Rather, just spend a little bit of extra money and buy a run of fiberglass that will fit the entire inside. This will also leave you with an entire run to fiberglass the deck later on too. I'm not entirely sure why Pygmy decided to skimp in this one area, but it's never sat well with many builders. I laid my full run of cloth down the hull and ran one side along the tape. You then smooth it out as best you can and tape the edge every foo

The Pygmy Borealis XL kayak is coming along swimmingly! So far I'm very ahead of pace as I only started about five weeks ago and am only working on it a little bit each night. I won't have the time to fiberglass the inside of the hull until Saturday, but that's OK because there were still a few small steps that needed to be done before then. Besides, you can't fiberglass the hull in an evening. You need to check on it every hour or so until the "green" stage so that you can properly trim the excess fiberglass. If you wait overnight it will probably be too hard to cut easily. 1. ALTERNATIVE STEP FROM THE OFFICIAL PYGMY MANUAL: I added end pours now instead of later as the Pygmy manual suggests. It just makes it easier. See my previous post . The Mylar dams have now been removed and the end pours look great. Plenty of room to drill a 1/2" hole through later for the toggle lines. 2. I also added some thickened epoxy in the ends and down the hull a foo

Tonight I added "end pours" to both ends of my Pygmy Borealis XL kayak. Back in 2000 when I made my first Coho, the Pygmy manual had us make a small cardboard "dam" and wedge it into the ends. You then filled the area with thickened epoxy and taped the deck on. It wasn't a bad idea but now the manual has switched the end pour to one of the final steps. In the new process they make you stand the boat up on its ends and contort yourself such that you pour epoxy into the ends. I understand that this new process fills the void between the hull and the deck better, but it's a real pain in the ass to do this. You also run the risk of creating a tremendous amount of heat if you pour in enough epoxy to fill the ends sufficiently so that you have enough material to later drill a hole through for the toggle lines. ALTERNATIVE STEP FROM THE OFFICIAL PYGMY MANUAL: So... I do both techniques, sorta. I create a dam using some of the Mylar. Simply bend it inward int

Did the final steps today on the underside of the deck. Scraped and sanded the tape I added yesterday.  Added two layers of glass to the aft area of the cockpit to reinforce the recessed deck plate. Then rolled on a saturation coat for the entire underside of the deck. In the picture below you can see the underside of the stern and where the three runs of fiberglass tape end. This is after I scraped and sanded the underside tapes. Here is the bow end and the other end of the three runs of tape. This is the recessed deck plate from the under side. You can see that I beveled it quite a bit. But it worked!   This is after the thickened epoxy and the three layers of tape on the gaps between the reinforcement plates, as per the Pygmy manual, and after the saturation coat. The dark brown areas are the thickened epoxy "ramps" that the manual has you make so that the tape sits better. I didn't make them very well and the tapes on the chines could

Today I removed the deck and added the fiberglass tape along all of the inside seams. Also built up the seams between the reinforcement panels as per the Pygmy manual. This is the deck before any tape was added. The deck is always a bit awkward to prop up and keep reasonably stable, but then today it occurred to me to simply use two foam car rack kayak carriers. I had a couple sitting around. They worked perfectly! This is the deck upside down on the two foam carriers. Why has it taken me four kayaks to think of this?!?! Again, I'm a bit slow at times and completely forgot to take pics of the deck while it was still upside down. I'll add some later when I remove the deck again. However this is the deck taped back on the hull to dry. I waited about 2-3 hours for the epoxy to get pretty tacky and then taped the deck back on the hull to dry. Tomorrow I'll remove the deck and sand smooth the seam tapes. The aft cockpit deck recess plate went in super easy. I

Since my last post I have added a fill coat to the hull, sanded the outside of the hull, added a thin layer of epoxy to places where I sanded too much, unscrewed the temporary frames from the table, rolled the hull over, and glued together the two #6 bow panels at the back of the cockpit as per the Pygmy manual. Lot's of progress made! Remember that my intention with this blog is not to show all the steps in making a Pygmy kayak, but rather to show steps where I deviate from the official Pygmy manual. Taping the hull instead of stitching it with wire for example. So if I don't talk about something in this blog it's because it's already in the official Pygmy manual.  ALTERNATIVE STEP FROM THE OFFICIAL PYGMY MANUAL: The next step I do is to tape the deck panels onto the top of the hull and the temporary frames. You can do this without having to drill holes and use wires! Tape is better! Have a few rolls of strapping tape available. I use 1" (or is it 3/4&qu

ALTERNATIVE STEP FROM THE OFFICIAL PYGMY MANUAL:   I switched around a step... I added the keel tape before fiberglassing the entire hull. Did that a few days ago and scraped off the rough edge that forms. Then sanded down the edges and the wood where I brushed out the excess epoxy. Doing the keel tape first makes for a much cleaner looking hull when you're finished. If in the future you ever need to add fiberglass to the keel you simply rough up the keel with some sandpaper and epoxy down a new strip. Did one of the more fun steps today... fiberglassed the outside of the hull! It's like magic how the fiberglass cloth turns clear as you add the epoxy. I can now get a good look at what the wood looks like. Here are some pictures of the cloth draped over the hull: (Again, note that the keel tape has already been applied and is underneath the cloth already.) As you smooth it down with your hands you'll see that it will conform to the shape of the bow. You'll nee

Taping instead of stitching & wiring a Pygmy Borealis XL kayak: Part 2 THIS ENTIRE POST IS AN ALTERNATIVE STEP FROM THE OFFICIAL PYGMY MANUAL: Once you have your temporary frames set up then it's time to start laying out the panels. Other than being upside down, taping the hull isn't that much different at this point than wiring. Have several rolls of strapping tape; the type with the monofilament running through it. I only used one full roll but will probably use at least another full roll when I tape the deck together later. Cut several strips of tape. As you cut each strip, fold the both ends over oh itself by 1/4" or so . This creates a tab to make it MUCH easier to pull the tape off later. Really, do this to both ends of every single piece of tape that you use! You will thank me later. Stick them onto your table for easy reach. The picture only shows four but have many more ready to go. Note: I was completely forgetful and didn't get a single