The fiberglassing has begun!  It's always a thrill to see the rich colors emerge when the epoxy hits the glass.    I started by running blue tape along the seam of the bottom panel. I propped up the edges with bits of shavings.            Having the edges of the tape hang down instead of adhering to the board allows excess epoxy to run off and not accumulate on the other side. Once turned over, as in the picture below, you can see how the tape allows for drips to fall off.        Here is the fiberglass laid out and trimmed. I added slits to the nose and tail where the cloth would have a hard time conforming to the curves.      And here's how it looks after the "Lam coat" (Lamination coat). I started at the nose and spread epoxy over the first third of the board with my spreader. I then worked it out to the edges on both sides, and then over and under the rails.    Then I went back and squeegeed off...

Today I spend time sanding the seams that I filled yesterday, as well as the rest of the bottom of the Annapolis Wherry hull.  Then I taped off the bottom planks and fiberglassed the bottom.  Read in my earlier posts about how I do the fiberglassing.  Later I used a sharp utility knife to cut along the hardened epoxy at the edge of planks #1 and pull up the tape and excess fiberglass. If you only wait 2 - 3 hours until the "Green Stage" when it's still slightly sticky, it will cut easily and still come up easily. If you let it cure, like the manual says to do, it'll be like cutting through rock! Trim the excess during the "Green Stage" when it's still slightly sticky and pliable.  Here's how it looked after the tape was pulled up.  Next I will need to work on shaping the bow around the fiberglass I just added, sanding the entire hull again, and then adding the first coast of epoxy coating.    Stay tuned for more!

Today I sanded out the entire inside of the hull again, and epoxy-coated the entire inside, again. Phew.  Here's how it looked at the end of the day.   First I used a cabinet scraper to cut down the really big fuzz that is created when you epoxy bare wood. I used it on the entire hull because it's a great tool for finding raised epoxy bits too. Then power-sanded where my 6" sander could reach. I hand-sanded the rest using a foam block with 80-grit sticky sand paper backing. I buy the rolls of sandpaper. The sticky back works really well.  Then I used the cabinet scraper again to cut off the tall scratches that the 80-grit paper leaves. This gave a nice surface for the epoxy.  Here's a close-up of how it looked after sanding. Then I epoxy coated the entire inside again.  I mixed up about 10 pumps of epoxy and poured it along the keel in the second section (I'm not epoxy coating the fiberglass again in the bow and stern... will leave the weave rough in those areas...

Yesterday I brushed on a coat of epoxy into all the seams on the Annapolis Wherry. I then wiped the planks down to get rid of any drips but made sure to allow epoxy to settle into the seams.  Today I gently hand-sanded the seams just to rough up the epoxy so that the next coat would stick.  I then epoxy coated the entire inside of the hull. Remember that I had already sanded the fiberglass on the bottom two planks and they were ready to go.  This coat was to add a second coat to the fiberglass to start to fill the weave, and to add a first coat to the bare wood on the upper three planks on each side.  I used three tools: An epoxy spreader, and 3" roller with an Wooster Tiz epoxy roll on it, and a 2" foam brush.  The Annapolis Wherry is an easy one to epoxy coat because the boat is neatly divided into five separate sections. That way you can completely take care of one section without feeling like you have to rush to the next one.  I did one section at a tim...

Yesterday I was able to fiberglass the inside of the CLC Annapolis Wherry hull.  It went well and looks good.  I did the epoxy work and then came back a few hours later while the epoxy was still in the "green" stage and trimmed the edges of the fiberglass. Then pulled the blue tape up.    While I'm a big fan of CLC, they could do a lot more in their manuals to help the first-time fiberglasser! This is what I wrote in an earlier blog post back on September 27th, 2021 while building an Expedition Wherry. It still applies to the Annapolis Wherry manual. If you are doing fiberglass for the first time, please read some of these hints and tips. You'll end up with a much nicer, and flatter, weave... "The CLC manual does surprisingly little to walk first-time builders through any fiberglassing tips and tricks.  First, they only suggest that you use a roller to apply the epoxy. Rollers are notorious for pulling up the cloth as you roll. Skip the rollers entirely. Ther...

 In my last post I had wired and glued the Annapolis Wherry hull together. The next day was spent, and I mean the entire boat-work day, removing the $&*#ing wires! Unlike boats that are glued on the edges of the panels (kayaks for example, and the Expedition Wherry), the Annapolis Wherry uses the Lapstitch process which embeds every wire in epoxy. They ALL were a challenge to remove.  Luckily I had one trick up my sleeve that helped. You can heat the wires and they will soften the epoxy just around the wire and the wires can much more easily slip out. I use a soldering iron.  If you have a wire that just will not come out, you can hold a hot soldering iron to it and let it heat up for 20-30 seconds. Be careful not to scorch the wood! You can then generally work the wire out. In the picture above you can see me holding the soldering iron to the end of a cut wire. It easily came out even though it was embedded in epoxy.  This trick even works on the bow, stern, and...

 Epoxying the inside of the CLC Expedition Wherry will take a much longer time than the outside did.  The inside is done in sections instead of the entire hull at one go. It's easier to do it in smaller sections like that, but is more tedious and time consuming.  CLC also wants you to run beads of thickened epoxy along all the hull seams and bulkhead seams. I am not sure why they want you to run seams along the hull panels, especially in the middle of the boat where the panels and much closer to flat to each other. That type of seam will have virtually no appreciable strength. I'm only running beads along both sides of the bulkheads, and along the panels at the bow and stern but only along the keel. Otherwise I'll leave it to the very strong holding power of the fiberglass cloth on both the inside and outside.    For fiberglassing the inside, CLC suggests that you cut a specific sized rectangle for each of the inside bays. There are different measurements...

I'm doing a few things out of order according to how the CLC manual says to do them. The manual has you fiberglass the inside of the hull first, but I glassed the keel tape the other day, and now I've glassed the outside of the hull.  For the first-time builder, epoxying the outside of the hull is MUCH easier than the inside and you'll learn a ton about how epoxy handles and such. That will set you up much better for success epoxying the inside later. I don't know why CLC has you do the hardest bit first... weird.  CLC has gone with 6 oz. cloth for this boat. That is heavier than the 4 oz. cloth that goes on most Pygmy kayaks and should make for a very strong hull. It's heavy though.   The cloth lays nicely and you can easily make it conform to the hull shape around the bow by gently, with both hands, spreading and smoothing the cloth downward. Gently pulling on the excess around the bow helps too. You'll be surprised by how much it will conform.  Once fully con...