Kayak Build, Part 2

With the kayak stitched together we were ready to start tacking it together.

Little J was in charge of mixing the epoxy so he set to work stirring, stirring and stirring some more. With some added wood flour he got the mix to a thick consistency and then I dumped it all into a syringe and filled the cracks between the copper stitches.

Here's the bow:


And the stern, with some extra epoxy on the transom to strengthen it:


And the hull, nicely tacked together:


Now came the hard part:
Before the tacks set I had to wire the hull and deck together so the tacks hardened with the panels in the right spot. Lining up the pieces and stitching them together was pretty much a two man job, but I had little J, right? Well, not really. He abandoned the effort to watch the Canucks on TV after his "epoxy stirring job" was done, so I was left on my own to stitch. All was going well until I was tightening up the bow and POP! one of the panels slipped in. With the temporary bulkheads in place I couldn't get the panel back up. To say I was pissed was a major understatement, because it meant pulling them apart again and then trying to reset the sheer panel in the right spot. And after (finally) getting the bow and stern all lined up, I wasn't about to undo all my stitches, so I scraped off as much epoxy as possible from the front panel and let the rest of the epoxy set. I ended up stitching the bow panels together separately when I didn't have the stress of the hull-to-deck fittings pushing on the panel.

Finally, done:


Only time will tell if they set.

Next up: Fiber glassing the interior

Pro tips for next time:

Having 2 adults to stitch the hull and deck together would have sped up my job considerably. Also, the stretch tape worked to hold the parts together, but only when I had a second person there to keep the tension on the first few wraps.