"Knot Again" -- Page 2

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Often, the football is a continuation of the curve of the strips along the side of the boat. In this case, I put in some trim stripes and then began my striping parallel with the centerline of the boat. No specific reason other that I'd always done it the other way and wanted to try it this way. You can see how I used hot glue to hold the first strip to the form. The extra squeeze-out was removed with a chisel before fitting the next strip.

Once I had a few strips in place in the football, I went back and planed the flat to seat the outer stems. Although I had laminated them at the same time that I laminated the inner stems (just a strip of plastic sheeting between them,) the outers ended up with a slightly tighter radius. That made it very easy to clamp them in place with a spring clamp on the extra length of the inner stem and a strap to pull the outer stem in snug. Twenty-four hours later the strap came off.

By filling in the football from the center line, I was able to continue the use of the rubber bands for much of the area. Trimming the ends of the strips to fit tight to the feature stripe was easily done by cutting them a little proud with a pull saw and then planing them to fit. The dark strips on the centerline were a last minute design change because all of the lighter third-growth cedar was twisted enough that I couldn't get any of them to line up straight without having something straight to start with.

I sanded the hull with 80 grit, wet it down to check for any glue spots still showing and to raise the grain, and then sanded it with 220 in preparation for a seal coat. I'm not a big sanding fan, but I do enjoy getting to this stage of the process where the lines of the boat really start to show nicely.

I've done boats with a seal coat and without. Decided to do a seal coat this time because I was planning to put down two layers of glass on the football concurrently and I didn't want to have any chance of starving the wood. Put the seal coat down with a squeegee. I had expected to put the glass down the next day but life got in the way so I ended up lightly sanding the Raka 350/127 resin before applying the glass.

There are many schools of thought regarding double glassing, with many suggesting a second layer, if used, should be placed after the first has cured. I've done it that way several times, but wanted to try the other method this time. The concern with putting a partial layer under the full layer is that you could cut through the full layer when sanding the transition area. In this case, I put 6 ounce on the football and extended it for a portion of the stems. The full layer is 3.7 ounce.

I was very please with how the glass turned out. I initially applied the resin with a brush for the double areas, and then squeegeed the excess towards the sides once both layers of the football were full wet out. I'm very pleased with how it worked, with the edge of the smaller layer of glass much less obvious after the first coat than it would have been otherwise. A second coat of resin went on with a sqeegee less than 24 hours later. Once that had cured, I lightly sanded the hull and applied a third coat with a sqeegee to finish the fillout.

The glass had a chance to cure for a week before I pulled the forms out of the boat and flipped it into a pair of saddles for the work on the inside. I've learned over time that giving the glass a week to cure greatly reduces the amount of change in the beam of the boat. In my mind, it's worth the wait although spreader bars cut to the right dimensions at several stations will do the same thing. The forms were easy to remove by unbolting them one by one from my strongback. Couldn't say the same about the stem forms, however.

With the kayaks I've built, I've held the inner stem to the stem form with screws from the outside, removing them as the strips approach that point on the stem. It ends up with screw holes in the inner stem, but you can't see them unless you stick your whole head into the hatch. In this case, since the stems would be visible, I didn't want screw holes. I hot glued the inner stems to the forms - apparently a bit better than I needed. I cut as much of the second form away as possible, and clamped doublers on the top edge of the canoe to support the upcoming stresses.

A piece of oak spanning the boat serves as the base for the jack. A strap was threaded through one of the holes in the stem form (and you thought they were for clamping when laminating the stems). Make sure everything is lined up as good as possible before adding tension to the strap.

Tension on the strap and a smack of the hammer on the side of the form are enough to pop the form loose, leaving a nice neat inner stem without holes.

A few hours of sanding and scraping later, the interior was ready for glass. The outside of the "tuck-in" area was much easier to glass than I had anticipated, but still, I was concerned about that area when glassing the inside. Thanks to some discussion on the Bear Mountain Boat Shop canoe builder's forum, I tried a new method of applying epoxy to glass on the interior. For the first time, I used a 3" long, short nap roller to apply the resin. While it was a little slower process than the brush or squeegee, it resulted in a much more even application of resin. Used the same tool for the second coat of resin which is all I'm going to put on the inside. While it will be a bit more challenge to varnish, I appreciate the slightly rough texture of partially filled plain-weave cloth on the inside of the boat, although now I'll have to find another excuse when I slip getting in the boat.