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Pygmy Pinguino Bulkhead Installation - Part 1

The bulkheads are often one of the more challenging bits to install on your Pygmy. You install them after the deck is epoxied on and the hatches are cut. It's a pain to get them in there and fit them.

First, you have to figure out where to put the forward bulkhead. You need to give at least an inch or more in front of the foot peg sliders.

The aft bulkhead fits in just an inch or two behind the furthest aft part of the cockpit opening.

Pygmy generally gives you a slightly oversized bulkhead, but I noticed on this latest Pinguino that the bulkheads fit better right out of the box than any other bulkheads. Nice! However, I still needed to trim the bulkheads a bit with my rasp and stationary sander.

I apologize for not having any images of the trimming and fitting process. Ooops.

Then you must remove the bulkheads and fiberglass them. Epoxy some cloth on both sides of each bulkhead.

The focus of this post though is aligning the bulkheads so that they are as straight as possible. I came up with an idea!

I cut some scrap sticks to a specific length and used them to brace the bulkhead perfectly in place. It worked!

For the main bulkhead I cut three sticks at (I think...) 20.25" and clamped/taped them aft of the main panel line. This formed three "stool legs" that the main bulkhead can rest against.

I did a similar thing for the forward bulkhead  by clamping sticks to the sliders.

Pics tell it better...

Pygmy Pinguino kayak bulkhead

Here you can see that the sticks start aft of the main seam.

Pygmy Pinguino kayak bulkheads



Sorry for the blurry picture on this one, but it shows the three points of contact for the main bulkhead.



Today I simply set them up like this and then "tacked" them down with a small amount of epoxy if a few spots. Tomorrow I'll remove the sticks and do a proper epoxy/taping job all the way around each bulkhead.




Cheers!




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