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Pygmy Pinguino Deck Underside Epoxy Coated

Some pretty straightforward steps this morning.

First, I used my carbide scraper to clean up the raised and rough edges of the fiberglass tape that I put down on the underside of the Pinguino deck yesterday. Take your time and really clean it up. You'll feel the underside of the deck but won't ever see it, so make sure that it FEELS nice and smooth. Don't worry so much about how it looks.

Then I used my random orbital sander to get some of the high spots flat and to lightly sand the wood panels.

Why are you doing this?:  Your biggest goal is to cut, scrape, or sand out rough spots and especially bits that can cut  you. Fiberglass cloth can be VERY sharp and "sandpaper-like" on your knees and skin, so you want to make sure that anything that can cut or scrape you is removed and covered with a couple coats of fresh epoxy. You also want to completely seal the wood as you will not be fiberglassing the underside of the deck. This is the only waterproofing it will receive. 

Then I used a squeegee and a 1.5" chip brush to saturate the underside of the entire deck. I really don't like using the rollers that Pygmy suggests.

My process is to mix up a "two pump" batch of epoxy and pour it over one section. This will work about 1/3 of the underside of the deck. I use my squeegee to gently spread it over the section, and use my brush for the sides and to work epoxy into areas that were sanded and need some dabbling to get the epoxy worked in.

Then when nicely covered, I very gently squeegee off the excess. But you want to leave enough so that you don't starve the wood. In the picture below you can see areas that got some epoxy yesterday and then dry looking areas that were bare wood. Those areas will look better after tomorrow when I add a second light coat of epoxy.

Pygmy Pinguino kayak deck

Other shots...

Here's the underside of the recessed panel. You can see the side to the right looks a bit bunged up... it's because I was messing around with the aft bulkhead and wanted to see how it fits at this point. I pushed it into place and it left a depression. That's okay. 

Pygmy Pinguino kayak recessed deck

The stern...

Pygmy Pinguino kayak deck


Then I spent just a few minutes cleaning up the inside of the hull. I used a hammer to persuade the temporary frames to come out. Then used a razor blade paint scraper to get the remaining hot glue off. It generally comes out well enough with a razor.

Later this week I'll sand the inside of the hull to remove the pencil lines, any remaining hot glue, and any raised epoxy that leaked through the seams while fiberglassing. Then I'll reinforce the butt seam.

Then the next BIG step will be to fiberglass the inside of the hull. That's the trickiest fiberglassing job of the entire project! Gulp...




Cheers!




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