Skip to main content

Bulkheads, Hatches, and Custom Wood Kayak Hand Toggles!

Busy day so far! Continuing on some of the detail stuff on my Pygmy Borealis XL kayak.

I received my new batch of epoxy and was able to do some fiberglassing jobs this morning. First I filled the backside of the bulkhead holes that I drilled through the bulkheads with epoxy, and then fiberglassed the bulkheads. The 3.5" stock that will become the hip braces was fiberglassed too. See picture below.


Then I sanded and fiberglassed the insides of the hatches that I cut out last week.

Pygmy Kayak hatches

All of those fiberglassed pieces will be trimmed once they reach the "green stage" in a few hours.

Then I started in on making my custom kayak hand toggles. One of my many hobbies is woodworking and I'm fortunate enough to have many woodworking tools; table saw, band saw, stationary sander, etc... Because I have access to the tools I can make my own custom hand toggles, but if you don't have access you may decide to simply purchase the plastic ones that Pygmy or other suppliers sell. They work perfectly!

I started by running up to Rockler Woodworking in Seattle and dove through their scrap bin. They had several nice slices of hardwood in varying colors, so I bought several. $4.99/lbs. and it all came to about $15 with most of it left over after I trimmed out what I needed. So I'm already no more expensive than the plastic ones.


Then I trimmed them to rough size and laid them out in the order I wanted them.


Next I brushed on some slightly thickened epoxy on each side that would touch and clamped them all together.


Will wait 24 hours and then cut out the blanks and drill holes through them and then shape them on the stationary sander. Hopefully they'll look great!

UPDATE: I completely forgot to add some pics of the finished toggles, so here they are now. NOTE: They would have a few coats of teak oil on them after these pictures. You would not epoxy them due to the larger amount of solid wood... they would expand and crack possibly. 





Aloha!



Labels:

Comments

  1. Unknown27 September, 2019 18:47

    i'd love to see a finished picture of the toggles. is there one?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Steve15 October, 2019 19:22

    Thanks for your post! I just now added some pictures of the finished toggles. You would of course also want to coat them in teak oil or even mineral oil.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Rogue Manual

I've posted about this earlier, but thought it might be good to post it again for anyone who may be interested. I've started to write a manual of tips and tricks for Pygmy solo kayak builders. It covers the taping method, so that your boat doesn't have hundreds of holes all over it. I'm on version 2 now. Version 2 covers several other tips and tricks from myself and from others as collected over time. ATTENTION : Use the manual at your own risk! The only person responsible for any mistakes or problems with the building of your boat is you. Always use the official Pygmy manual that came with your kit. Only do those tips and tricks that make sense to you. If something in the manual doesn't sound right to you, then don't do it! Neither I, nor Pygmy Boats, nor anyone else except YOU is responsible for the safety of your boat and the quality of your build. It's in very rough draft form right now, but if you'd like to read it, please send a $10 donat...
11 comments
Read more

Annapolis Wherry Spacered Inwales Installed

For the past week (yes, WEEK!) I have been working on the outwales and spacered inwales. The inwales and outwales are such an obvious part of the boat that you really want them to look as good as you can possibly make them. And doing that takes a lot of time and patience.  The spacered inwale kit is an addition to the basic wherry kit. The kit includes the OUTwales, but does not come with INwales. We like the look of the spacered inwales and find that they have some function too for securing things to the hull. They look nautical.    The spacered inwale kit comes with inwale rails, sticks you cut to make the spacers, a replacement breasthook for the bow, and replacement quarter knees for the transom.  They leave it up to you for how long to cut the spacers and how far apart to space them. The manual that comes with the kit is extensive.  I like the look of rounded spaces. No, it's not the normal look of spacers which are supposed to simulate the ribs on a wooden...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hatches Cut on Pygmy Borealis XL Kayak

I've mentioned many times that I'm doing some steps out of order. It just makes it easier and makes more sense if you can keep them all straight. The Pygmy manual has you wait to cut the hatches until the entire boat is done. It also suggests that you wait to run tape along the inside hull/deck joint until you cut the hatches. However, if you do that then it's a real pain to get the tape cleanly behind the cockpit hip braces. The seat is in the way too. So, here's a better order to do things: 1. While you are installing the coaming, you will have some time while the fiberglass cures on the upper coaming strips. This is a great time to go ahead and cut your hatches 2. Before you install the hip braces, run the hull/deck joint taping step. It's pretty easy to reach most of the joint if you have the hatches cut. 3. Now you can tinker away at installing both the upper coaming strips and the hatch spacers. Easy! Here's side two of the upper coaming stri...
Post a Comment
Read more