Hatches, hatches…there are two hatches. Bungees loop to hooks on the underside of the hatch covers to hold them firmly in place. A Monkey’s Fist knot in turquoise paracord forms the handle.
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Shape the deck, sand the deck. Fill the gaps, let the epoxy dry, sand the deck. Fill more gaps, let the epoxy dry, sand the deck. Fill the now magically-appearing, aiming-to-crush-my-soul gaps, let the epoxy dry, sand the deck. Remember the Tootsie Pop ads?
The answer is 364, although twenty non machine-assisted lickers averaged 252 licks to get to the center.
The question now, dear readers, is how many times can you sand a deck made from 1/4″ thick wood with 80, 120, 150 and 220 grit sandpaper without discovering the other side?
Planing the deck edges
With the deck glued to the hull it’s time to shape, sand, fill, sand, sand, sand, and sand. A process known colloquially known as “fairing the boat”. Above, the boat goes in one end of the plane, art and scrap comes out the other.
Three hundred and twelve linear feet of Yellow Alaskan Cedar, Walnut and Western Red Cedar in three-quarters-of-an-inch wide planks form the deck. Ninety-six hand-cut bevels where each plank meets the deck edge. The next step will be sanding the underside and glassing it before joining it to the hull.
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- Ready for lifting off the hull
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- Complete! The culmination of a month
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- The last strip is in place
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- Ready for fitting
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- Two strips to go
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- The moment of truth, or did-I-do-something-wrong-and-glued-the deck-to-the-forms-by-accident
It’s been a busy spring, with too few snippets of time spaced too far apart. Some progress on the deck though, makes me happy.
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- The field of walnut before the next set of pinstripes. Five or so strips to go before the transition to Western Red Cedar to complete the deck.
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- The first contrasting walnut strips with the yellow cedar pinstripe installed
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- Centerline strips in place front and rear, also Alaskan Yellow Cedar
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- First Alaskan Yellow Cedar strips scarfed and stapled to form the deck
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- Forms in to shape the deck
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- Host and pinstripe strips sawed and ready for gluing
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- Resawing Alaskan Yellow Cedar bead-and-cove into 1/16″ strips. Will be sawing 20 7′ walnut strips in half lengthwise as well then making a delicious wood sandwich
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- Glue, clamp, tape to free up clamps, repeat.
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- Almost-finished pinstripes ready for sanding. Wish I had a planer.
Nipping the copper ties (the stitch) and sanding the filets and seams (the glue) in preparation for fiberglassing the hull
Copper nest
The last two weeks have been all about the interior of the boat. Now, with fillets and fiberglass in place, some sanding and 3-ish coats of epoxy it’s time to share the love on the exterior. Next up, a full fiberglassing of the outer hull. Lots of sanding and smoothing to do before that happens.
Copper stitches
I’ve been wanting to build a wood core kayak for at least a decade. I’ve clicked through the boat designs at Chesapeake Light Craft on and off for years. After much internal debate I purchased the Millcreek 16.5 Hybrid Tandem Kayak. The “hybrid” part is that the hull is marine plywood but the decking is done with 3/4″ cedar strips arranged in what ever design I feel like I can pull off. Hmmm…
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