Cockpit combing and hatch

You can never have too many clamps around the shop when you build boats.

This is the lip that goes around the cockpit combing. It is made from laminated strips of Purple Heart and Ash. Next I will cut down the combing to the same height as the lip and glass it all together.

This is the lip that I glassed in for the forward hatch. I did the same for the rear hatch too.

cutting the hatches

It only took five minuets to saw out the two hatches.

It took two days to get enough courage to pick up the saw and pull the trigger.

Back to work

Well it has been a month sense my last post. I got side tracked by other things in life that needed my attention. We sold our airplane and that took me away from the kayaks for about three weeks. Then we bought a new car to replace my truck. But now I am back to work on the Guillemot.

I have the deck glassed inside and out. And the outside of the hull is glassed. Today I started framing the cockpit combing. I know that it looks tall, but it will be trimmed lower when it's finished.

Next I will sand the combing smooth and glass it. Then I will build up the rim of the combing with lamination's of dark and light hard wood.

The ice is breaking up on the lakes. A brave soul could kayak today if he wanted to. I think that I could finish the Guillemot in about six weeks if nothing else distracts me. Just in time for the kayak season to get started.

Glassing the deck

Today the UPS driver showed up with my long over due glass cloth and epoxy. I saved BIG money by getting my epoxy from http://www.boatbuilder.org/ . But they were closed down for a family illness for two weeks.

The UPS truck didn't make it out of the subdivision before I had epoxy resin mixing with the slow hardener.

This is one layer of 6oz. fiberglass cloth and the first coat of epoxy. Tomorrow I will put a second coat of epoxy to fill the weave of the cloth. A third coat may or may not be needed to totally fill the weave.

The glass brings out the true colors of the wood.

New table saw

In an earlier post I said I got a new table saw. My buddy Ted said lets see it. So here it is. It works great. Best of all is it hooks up to my dust collector. So now I can saw in the house without covering everything in dust.

When my old saw quit in the middle of a cut, it left me stuck with no way to continue work on the Guillemot. So I put some stuff on e-bay and got enough money to buy the saw. I looked at the one at Home Depot but they would not deal on the price. Amazon .com had the same saw for $80 less then Home Depot and the shipping was free.

This is the planer that I got from Santa at Christmas. I can not believe how much I use it. It makes all my strips uniform in thickness so that all the beads and coves come out perfect.

It took me a full day to sand the Guillemot smooth. Now with all my strips being planed with perfect beads and coves, The Petrel will probably sand smooth in an hour or two.


It's a good thing that I am building two kayaks at once. The Guillemot is stalled again. I ordered all the epoxy and glass cloth, but the order is on hold for two weeks. At least I have the other kayak to work on until then.

Sanding the hull

Yesterday I laminated the stems. Today I carved them to shape with my block plane.

After I shaped them with the plane I sanded the hull. In this photo the hull is not sanded yet.

In this photo the hull has had it's first sanding. Now I will fill in some gaps and holes with epoxy and wood flower. Then it will all get a finish sanding. It's time to order the epoxy and fiberglass cloth so that next weekend I can start glassing the deck.

The stems

Progress on the Guillemot was held up for more than a week because my cheep, got it on sale, table saw died in the middle of a cut. So I sold some stuff on E-bay and bought a new Dewalt table saw.

Now that I can saw strips of wood again, I cut up a chunk of ash and made some 1/8 x 1 strips. Then I laminated them to the bow and stern to make the stems. Tomorrow I will start sanding the hull and get it caught up to the deck.