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 to squeegee to the next seam. Scrape the excess epoxy into a cup and then put the first squeegee into the second seam to hold it down and then use the other squeegee to scrape, etc...
It works but it's still not perfect. The real pros get good at it over time, but this is my fourth kayak and I've still not mastered this step by any means.
This picture actually looks worse than it really is. It's the glare from the lights. Overall the cloth is laying pretty flat, but not perfectly.
This is the cockpit area and it looks pretty good. It's the best part of the today's step.
The bow.
By the way, the manual suggests that you do a saturation coat of epoxy on the bare wood first and then let that harden, and then put down the cloth. My thought is that that adds weight without adding any sort of structural advantage. I think they say to do that because too many people were squeegeeing too hard and starving the wood of epoxy.
More later when I cut off the edge right underneath the blue tape and attempt to peel off the edging. Fingers crossed!
Peace!
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 to squeegee to the next seam. Scrape the excess epoxy into a cup and then put the first squeegee into the second seam to hold it down and then use the other squeegee to scrape, etc...
It works but it's still not perfect. The real pros get good at it over time, but this is my fourth kayak and I've still not mastered this step by any means.
This picture actually looks worse than it really is. It's the glare from the lights. Overall the cloth is laying pretty flat, but not perfectly.
This is the cockpit area and it looks pretty good. It's the best part of the today's step.
The bow.
By the way, the manual suggests that you do a saturation coat of epoxy on the bare wood first and then let that harden, and then put down the cloth. My thought is that that adds weight without adding any sort of structural advantage. I think they say to do that because too many people were squeegeeing too hard and starving the wood of epoxy.
More later when I cut off the edge right underneath the blue tape and attempt to peel off the edging. Fingers crossed!
Peace!
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