Reinforcing the deck panels

Align the four deck panels so that the butt seams are even so you can place the supplied 3 1/2 " plywood panels right in front of the cockpit on the bottom side of the deck. We drew pencil lines to show where the panels should lie and then drew lines on the plywood section where they needed to be cut. We didn't make it completely flush with the deck panels, they overhang a little bit, but we will have to bevel them anyways, so they can just be filed and sanded down later.

Once everything was cut we mixed some epoxy with wood flour till it was about the consistency of honey and brushed it on the both panels. Then we pressed the reinforcement panels down on the deck panels and weighted them with bricks.

Finally we cleaned all the excess epoxy with the squeegee and let it cure.

Issues and troubleshooting: taping and epoxying the butt seams

So we ran into a few issues during the first section. Here's how we dealt with them (with the advice of the awesome Pygmy people):

• The first I would say is just that my first seams were really messy. I had some bubbles/small sections that weren't covered with epoxy, the corners of the tape weren't completely clean and peeled up on a couple seams, and I also didn't clean the epoxy very well off of the face of the panel. The little bubbles and small uncovered sections were okay to leave and will get filled in when we epoxy and glass the whole boat. The little non-epoxied corners of tape I just cut off with a razor knife and the space left will get filled in later. The epoxy that wasn't cleaned well on the faces just had to be filed and sanded a lot to get it smooth.
• The epoxy on Kelly's second set of seams didn't cure correctly (meaning it never hardened). We still don't really know why. I think that it was because she reused the mixing cup which we earlier tried to clean with acetone. I think there was still acetone residue in the cup that got mixed with the epoxy and caused it to never cure fully. She had to use lacquer thinner (you can use acetone on the plastic tools but not on wood, for wood you need lacquer thinner) to get as much of the epoxy off the panels as possible. Then she sanded the rest off until it was back to wood. This wasn't too hard and didn't take too long. We have been using new cups and stirring sticks every time and haven't had that problem again.
• On one of my seams the 2x4 ended up partially on the panel and got glued to it. I had to rip it off and some of the first ply of the panel came with it. I filled it with a little bit of epoxy to try and even it back out with sand paper later.
  

Sanding and filing the cured seams

Above is a seam that has finished curing but hasn't been cleaned yet. First we used a razor knife to cut the excess fiberglass tape off the edges. A lot of the epoxy had splooged out on the side where I couldn't clean it up with a squeegee. On the first seams (which were super messy and uneven) I tried to use the razor knife to get all the epoxy off, not just the tape. I found it much easier to shave the cured epoxy with the knife just a little bit and then use a file/rasp to grind off the rest so that it is flush with the wood. We found a 4 in 1 file/rasp at the hardware store that has 2 different rasps and 2 different files all on one. It works really well. Kelly used a straight razor blade to scrape the epoxy off and then 60 grit sandpaper to finish it. Both worked pretty well.

We also sanded down the face of the panel to make the transition from normal wood to epoxied seam smooth. Since I did such a poor job of squeegeeing the first set of seams I had to use a rasp first to grind off all the epoxy then 60 grit sandpaper to finish it. Below is a pretty finished seam.

Also just to note that we let the epoxy cure overnight after each set of seams and there are 8 sets of seams so it took about 8 days to do this first section.

Epoxying the butt seams

We kept the epoxy and hardener in our house and when we brought it over to use it we kept it in front of a warm lamp to keep it from getting too cold. We mixed the epoxy in small plastic juice cups (we used a new one each epoxying session).

We mixed the epoxy under the warm light as advised in the manual if working in cold conditions. I did inside of the left side first and we each did just one seam at a time. We put plastic wrap under each seam and weighted down each panel with random objects. The first seams we did were really messy, so we learned that you should just coat the panels with epoxy, put the light fiberglass tape down, paint a little more epoxy until all the tape becomes clear. Then you don't need to go crazy with epoxy on top of that but put a nice dollop on and spread it out a bit.

Then place the plastic mylar down and push all the bubbles out and press the plastic down so that all of the epoxy is in contact with the mylar sheet.

Then we put the section of 2x4 on top of the plastic making sure that none of it is touching the panel.
Then place weights (we used two bricks wrapped in plastic per seam) on top of the 2x4. The plastic/2x4/bricks will float a little bit, I just pressed it down and waited till it stopped moving. Then go back and clean up all the epoxy that was squeezed out with the squeegee. It makes sanding and filing much easier if you do this part well. If your 2x4 doesn't cover all of the plastic, I found pressing the squeegee down on the edges of the plastic to squeeze out the rest so that when it cures it is all as even as possible.

Panels!

So, here we are ready to start building Pygmy Cohos in the arts and crafts room of camp. Hopefully the boats will end up looking better than the majority of the craft products that have been produced in this room over the years... Neither of us has any experience building boats, or really doing much of anything involving wood or epoxy or construction. And we aren't exactly using a state-of-the-art workshop facility, so we'll most likely do a fair amount of improvising. But we will be able to borrow a lot of tools (thanks Camp Orkila maintenance crew!) and there are plenty of resources to help us along the way. We're facing a pretty steep learning curve, but research shows that clumsy novices across the country have successfully built beautiful, functional boats, so hopefully we will, too.


We laid all the panels out for our two cohos in arts and crafts. The boats that we will use to paddle the inside passage this next summer! We put some tarps over the drafty doors to hopefully keep some of the heat in over the winter. We also put down old bed sheets to keep everything a little cleaner and hopefully not let errant glitter get epoxied to the boat.

Name change, big project start

So since I last posted we spent all summer in our geodesic dome, leading 3 hr. kayak tours (insert Gilligan's Island joke here), going on some of our own paddling trips, biking our 5 mi. "commute" each day, and spending lots of time in coffee shops. Pic: view from Eagle Cliff on Cypress:


Then the fall went off without a hitch, our second season as lead instructors passed by quickly and funly (yes I know that's not a word). Multiple fun trips to Seattle and Bellingham including seeing the National at Marymoore (which was super rad), Kaitlyn and Michael's wedding, a tiny bit of apple picking and of course "Men's Wellness Retreat feat. Jenna". Which was an attempted paddling trip to the northern islands which ended up being a 2 night party on Pt. Doughty. Pic: men getting well feat. Jenna



Now we have hunkered down in the Dispensary at camp. I am cooking at Doe Bay Cafe which is great, I am learning a lot and having fun. Kelly is waiting tables at Allium and is planning on substituting in the schools.

We have a huge project underway to keep us occupied...building kayaks! We are going to keep a detailed account of the process. We are currently epoxying seams, and will finish that this week and then will have our first kayak building update!

By the way we changed blog address to chipsncake because as most probably know...I love chips, and well Kelly loves cake. And we often have discussions on the merits of each and which are better.