Interior Glass at Last

Last weekend I continued as planned by giving the interior a final sand, vacuum and wipe down. Satisfied that I had as perfect a surface as possible, I happily threw myself at laminating the first strip amidships. I was pretty confident, since the test panel had turned out brilliantly.

The initial coat of epoxy went on easily enough, but when I attempted to apply the strip of fiber glass cloth, all of the horrors from my earlier laminating of the hull's exterior came flooding back. The cloth would pull this way and that. Folds would develop in one place, and once sorted out, the cloth suddenly wouldn't reach the gunwales anymore. I'd fiddle around and swear at it until it eventually seemed to behave itself, when suddenly one of the clamps would fly off and a great fold of cloth would peel away from the surface, forcing me to start all over again. I tried to use the peel-ply, thinking that it might help to tame the unruly glass cloth, but it only made matters worse. The wispy light fabric of the peel-ply took on characteristics similar to normal glass cloth on crystal-meth., and when it got near it's partner in crime, they appeared to rejoice in an orgy of mischief. After wrestling with these two evil materials for some time, I decided to abandon the peel-ply and concentrated my fight solely on the glass cloth (divide and conquer). Somehow, I finally managed to force it into some semblance of order. This process took so long (and taxed my mental/emotional faculties so much), that I couldn't get any further that day. This photo shows the result. Slightly less ideal than my test panel, but should be ok.
(Score, Me:1 - Glass Cloth: nil)







The next day, I warily approached the canoe with a mixture of respect and disgust, but also determination. This bastard wasn't going to beat me. This time I was going to take it easy, work strategically and show no signs of weakness. It was going to be a hot day, but dry. I thought about trying to string up a tarp, but because I wanted to come to grips with my enemy quickly, I instead decided to attack straight away.

This time, so as to ensure absolute control of this mongrel fabric, I opted to use the 'dry method' of laminating. This means not applying an initial layer of epoxy first, then laying the cloth over this, followed by applying subsequent applications of epoxy (aka; 'wet method'). By using the dry method, I intended to clamp the recalcitrant glass cloth in place, whilst slowly and methodically assaulting it with the epoxy. This seemed to work pretty well. The glass cloth did make a couple of feints and counter attacks, but through effective flanking maneuvers and by maintaining a steely focus, I finally emerged victorious. Feeling quite proud of myself, I bowed smugly to my foe and retired for the day (it was pretty hot, after all).

At the end of the day I came back to cover up the hull for the night and discovered a slight flaw to my tactics. By leaving the wet lamination in the direct sun (something which pretty much everybody says not to do - and in hindsight seems pretty dumb anyway), the surface must have heated up too much, causing air to bubble up from the surface. This left lots of big blisters, which I'm now going to have to sort out.
(Score, 1 - all)




The next time, I decided to learn from my mistake. I dug out my army hootchie (cammo fly-sheet) and strung it up over the next section with occy-straps. Then I proceeded with the same clamping/dry technique that seemed to work so well before.



This time I was much more successful. This is more like it, although I still loath fiber-glassing.
(Score, Me: 2 - Glass Cloth: 1)






The next day, I assaulted the bow section. With my trusty hootchie in place again, I followed Gary's advice about laminating each side separately, and applying a strip to cover the join. A bit fiddly, and the cloth still tried the odd rebellion here and there, but overall it worked very well.
(Score, Me: 3 - Glass Cloth: 1)









Today it was the stern section's turn to get laminated. Same again, another victory.
(Game, Set and Match, bitch!)






So I now have the whole interior initially laminated. There's a little bit of rework yet to be done on the blisters, and the whole lot needs a decent fill coat of epoxy to cover up the stitching of the cloth, which is still sitting proud of the surface. I'm wondering if I might be able to use the pee-ply on this fill coat, so I don't end up using too much epoxy. Reckon I might give Pacific Boatcraft a call tomorrow and ask them. Hopefully I'd be able to tame that foul fabric as well (bring it on).

Interior Glassing Preparations

Even with the constant threat of bad weather last week, I was still able to get the canoe pretty well ready to receive the interior lamination of fiber glass. First I completely sanded and cleaned up the epoxied interior. The stern fillet needed a bit of a re-work because of the runny mix used initially, so I mixed up another small batch and got it all sorted out. It's still not very pretty but at least it should be OK for the glass.





Then I set up my new roll of Bi-Axial cloth and started measuring out the lengths needed. With the traumatic memories of my earlier experiences in glassing the exterior still fresh in my mind, I have instead decided to apply the glass in strips cross-wise this time. This should mean that I'll only have to deal with a small area at a time, and ought to have lots less trouble getting the bloody cloth to behave itself. I started amidships and worked toward the ends (the widths seems to fit just right). There will be a slight overlap between each strip, but I'm hoping this will add to the transverse strength. Once these strips were all cut out, I stacked them neatly on my bench and covered them over.








I'm a bit concerned about the much heavier cloth (over 400gm - twice what was used on the exterior), specifically whether or not I'll be able to wet it out enough. So I cleaned up one of the earlier test panels (the really bowed one) and did a trial run on it. I also used some peel ply, since I'm planning to have a go at using that as well in the proper lay-up. It seemed to go well, hope it turns out OK.





I'm hoping that I get a good break in the weather tomorrow (predicting rain again). Man, what I'd give to have a decent shed to work in. It'd be so cool to get past all this fiber glassing crap, and finally get onto some fun stuff (gunwales, bulkheads, etc).

Fillets and Interior Soak Coat Done

Last Tuesday I was able to get the bow and stern fillets done. After vacuuming/wiping down the inside of the hull, a soak coat of epoxy was run along the whole keel from the bow to the stern. Then I made up the filler/glue powder mixture for the fillets and had a go at running the actual fillets. I optimistically thought I'd be running a fillet down the length of the keel as well, but that turned out to be not very practical, so I just stuck with the bow and stern ones.







The first fillet (in the stern) was a bit runny so it sagged a bit, but it should be OK.




I made the mix for the bow one much thicker, but this time I was unable to get it very smooth.



Today I went in to my local fiber glass supplier in Gosford to suss out some glass for the interior. I've been worrying about possible compromise to the canoe's structural integrity, from using such thin cedar (and then sanding it even thinner). I ended up buying some Bi-Axial cloth, which is much thicker than the 200gm cloth that I used on the exterior, as well as being properly sewn together. I'm now satisfied that the hull should be plenty strong when finished.

This afternoon I went out and applied a decent soak coat of epoxy to the rest of the interior. I'm hoping to be able to start fiber glassing the inside tomorrow, although they are predicting lots of rain. If I can't get the glassing done tomorrow, then I'll have to wait until later next week.

Scraping and Sanding Done

I managed to make some more headway over the last couple of days. I got stuck in and finished scraping the bulk of the glue from the interior.







I launched into it again today. Using a random orbital sander (borrowed from my father-in-law), I sanded the left over glue and managed to get that all done as well. The bow an stern were a bit too tight to get into with the sander, so I further scraped and hand sanded as best I could.








Now she's pretty much ready for interior epoxy and installation of the keel fillet, prior to glassing the inside. I'm back to work tomorrow so that will have to be a job for Tuesday (weather permitting).

Start Scraping Interior

With it being such a busy time of the year, I haven't gotten as far as I'd hoped (a familiar theme). There's been the usual insanity with Christmas preparation/family stuff, but I've been lucky enough to get the whole week off from Christmas day. Unfortunately the weather has also been pretty crappy lately so I've lost a lot of time (oh, for a decent boat-shed), however I have made some small progress.

I attached those temporary gunwales and used some left over cedar strips for spreader sticks. These I stapled to the gunwales and they seem to work ok.




I left the molds sitting in the hull, hopefully they can help maintain the shape a bit.



Yesterday I spent loads of time scraping glue from the inside of the hull. What a tedious, mind-numbing process that is. A couple of essential tools for the job are an ipod and a limited intellect (both of which I happen to possess). I found a narrowish chisel to be the best tool, but I couldn't help sometimes gouging the planking with the corners of the chisel whilst ploughing away in a drooling stupor. Anyway, I somehow managed to get about half of the hull scraped. In the photo below, the scraped section appears to be a little bit rough but that's just an illusion. It is actually quite rough. Hopefully once I sand the interior, it will look somewhat better.








This is how far I got. Hopefully it won't take too long to get it ready for sanding. I'm pretty keen to get the inside all cleaned up and fiber glassed. The last thing I 'd want to happen now would be for water to get in or the hull to start distorting.

Finally, Some Progress

At last I can try and make some progress on the poor old canoe. She looked pretty forlorn out the back under her tarp. There were even vine type weeds growing through her (I feel quite ashamed).



I've been trying to work out how to rig a tarp to form a decent shelter that I can work under, but after my disastrous earlier attempts I decided to go for something a bit more elemental instead (namely, the big Jacaranda tree out back). Not very waterproof but it is light and airy.



So with the family out for the day I got stuck in and I'm happy to say that I had a really productive day. I was worried that the hull might have distorted because of having the outside glassed and the inside still raw timber, but it actually didn't look any different from the way it did when I last tucked her away. So lucky (the test panels warped horribly after a few weeks when I'd only glassed the one side). I was also stoked to find that the hull popped straight off the molds without any forcing or swearing at all.



With the hull removed, I quickly got the molds off and made up a cradle. I modified the strongback (made it more level and lower), then mounted the cradle to the strongback and fitted some carpet to protect the hull.



Then I flipped the hull over and placed it into the cradle. I used a grinder to trim the fiberglass/epoxy excess around the gunwale. It's so cool to finally have something that actually looks like a canoe.



I also managed to rip a scrap bit of timber for temporary gunwales, which I'll fit tomorrow. In the mean time, I've slipped the molds back into place to help maintain the shape. Once the temporary gunwales are fitted, and some spreader sticks installed, I can get on with scraping all that bloody glue off the interior (not looking forward to that).



After this eventful day I sat in the yard with a couple of beers, staring at my new boat and starting to think that it might just work out ok after all. Can't wait until tomorrow....

I'm Baaaack.

First up, I must apologise for being so quiet over the last few months. Much has been happening (unfortunately not on the canoe), plus I had some issues with getting into the site. For a long time, I just couldn't get the site to load for some reason. I thought it might've been due to my putting so many photos on the site, but after replacing our modem for a faster one, everything magically started working again. (Duh!!!) It won't be so long between posts from now on.

As for the other comment about much going on, I have been grappling with a 'mid-life career crisis'. Long story short, I have started an online university degree. This has proven to be much more work than I had anticipated, and so the canoe has been forced to take a back seat yet again. She has been carried around to the back yard (oh yeah, we had to buy a new car as well, so the canoe got evicted from the car port), bundled up and tied down. I'm currently on a couple of months holidays, and I had hoped to be able to work on both of these projects simultaneously, but this has proved to be impractical (especially whilst also trying to fulfill my usual family obligations). It's so incredibly frustrating, but I have a cunning plan. This current unit only has about another six weeks to go and the next study period runs from November to about February next year. I'm going to take that study period off so that I can focus solely on getting the canoe finished. Then I can resume my studies next year, and start using the canoe in whatever opportunities I get. Anyway, that's the current plan.

I did manage to get the outside of the canoe fiber glassed and it's ready to pop off the molds. I've discovered that I'm a pretty horrible fiber glasser. The epoxy went on relatively smoothly, but I've come to the conclusion that fiber glass cloth was invented by the devil. No matter how careful I was, I just couldn't get the cloth to lay flat. She looks a bit like a Frankenstein job to me, but it should prove strong enough. It really decides the fact that I'm going to have to use fairing powder to get the hull nice and smooth before painting. No real problem I guess. Here's a couple of photos.