Deck epoxied onto the Borealis XL

Tonight I finally glued the deck onto my Pygmy Borealis XL kayak.

Started by adding a second layer of epoxy where my feet will go. This is a really nice trick from the Pygmy manual. The rough weave of the cloth doesn't seem like it should be that big of a deal on your heels, but after being in the boat for a while it really starts to hurt. So adding a layer or two to fill the weave just in the foot area works really well.

Just lay down some masking tape and then roll on the epoxy. I actually did two fill coats as the first one wasn't enough. I also put blue tape around the foot brace studs so that when I run the fiberglass tape and epoxy down the hull/deck joint later on I won't get epoxy on the threads.

Taping the deck on is no different than any of the other taping steps we've done, and when it's cured we will have a complete boat with ZERO tiny drill holes! And we will have saved ourselves a lot of pain and blood from that horrid wire.

I put the deck back on and spent about an hour carefully taping it down. You may have to use a lot of pins to hold portions of the deck or hull in or out to align the two together. Then you'll also need to run a lot of tape to keep it aligned.

You can see from the pictures that I used a LOT of tape. Most of one roll. I just hope that they all hold long enough for the epoxy to cure!

Fingers crossed!

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