One last step tonight was to put the second filler coat on the deck and #4 panels of my Pygmy Borealis XL kayak. The weave is mostly filled at this point, but even where it still shows it is built up enough so that when I sand in a few days it should flatten out well without cutting into the cloth. I'm super happy that you can't see a white cut line on the #4 panels from the deck fiberglass! Phew! The sides look great.  Gotta wait a couple days for it to cure to a pretty hard state before I sand it. Maybe tomorrow I can put a final fill coat on the bottom while I'm waiting for it to cure? Peace!

This morning I sanded the cut edge of the fiberglass from yesterday's step. It blended well into the #4 panels and I don't see any sort of white cut line. Phew! Today I'm rolling on two fill coats of epoxy on the deck and #4 panels. In a day or so when cured enough I will sand with my random orbital sander (ROS) and 220 grit paper. Here are pictures after the first fill coat. You can still see the weave. In fact, after the second coat tonight you'll still probably be able to see the weave but it should have enough epoxy built up to sand flat. Peace!

The last job today on my Pygmy Borealis XL kayak build was to trim the excess fiberglass from this morning's step. I waited several hours (it's only mid-50's today and took longer to get to the "green stage") and it trimmed quite easily. I was happy to see that the trimming with a new Exacto blade didn't seem to leave a white line. I've had a white line that never disappeared happen in the past, but this looks good. Tomorrow I'll sand along the cut edge to blend it in with the sides, and then add the first filler coat. Aloha!

Even though we have house guests, I was able to get the fiberglass on this morning. My brother-in-law helped too! It went on quite well but it wasn't until we were done that we noticed several dog hairs UNDER the fiberglass... Ugh! I guess my dog will be immortalized on the new boat. Otherwise it looks good! I cut relief slits in the cockpit cloth so that it wouldn't pull too much on the epoxied cloth. Here's one of about twenty dog hairs that we discovered AFTER we were done, and that are UNDER the cloth! Ugh!!! Oh well... every kayak has its quirks and I guess I'll be taking my dog hair with me. :-P Next I will trim the excess cloth off in a few hours. Aloha!

I've mentioned a few times that I'm writing a supplementary manual for Pygmy kayak builders. It's currently up to 30 pages with lots more to go. About half of it is dedicated to the "strapping tape" method of building a boat and not using wires and holes. The rest is other techniques, tips and tricks that many builders have used over the years. If you want Pygmy kayak building tips and tricks then hopefully this will be the place to go. Here are the first few sample pages: The cover:  The Table of Contents and first few pages: Rogue Supplemental Manual Table of Contents Those are the first eight pages of the thirty page manual. I'm sure it will be larger by the time I'm finished. Let me know if you have ideas of what should be included, or what you think of the manual so far. Thanks! Aloha!

I've started writing a " Rogue Supplementary " manual for Pygmy kayak builders. The idea is that it is filled with as many Pygmy kayak building tips as possible. So far it's up to 30 pages! More on this supplementary manual later. -------------------- Tonight I sanded the excess epoxy off of the deck panels and lightly rounded over the seams. There are still a few blotches of epoxy here and there but they will completely disappear under the fiberglass. Overall I think it looks great! The next step is to fiberglass the deck. We have guests coming into town so it may be a week or so before I can return to it. Stay tuned though! You can see a close-up of the seams below. It looks very clean and should make a really nice, clean line when the fiberglass is put down on top. The little blotches of epoxy will go completely invisible and leave just the beautiful wood and a clean seam line. You can also start to see the benefit of taping the hull instead of stitch...

Today I removed the tape holding the deck in place and then spent some time filling the gaps in the seams with thickened epoxy. I also added thickened epoxy to many of the other deck seams that weren't fully filled up to the panels. Filling all the seams with thickened epoxy gives the boat a nice, clean look when completed. Try to use the same consistency of thickened epoxy too, as the more wood flour you add the darker it gets. Regardless, the thickened epoxy is still lighter in color than unthickened epoxy when dry. Under the fiberglass and a few coats of varnish most of the differences in your thickened epoxy coloring should be unnoticeable. But if you have areas with un-thinned epoxy they will stand out against any of the areas with thickened epoxy. Just be consistent.  I'll let it all dry for 24 hours and then tomorrow night I will hit the deck and the tops of the #4 panels with the random orbital sander (ROS) to get rid of excess epoxy and to round the seams gently. ...