...and another thing

If you're going to move house while building a kayak, try to bring all the equipment with you.

It seems that during the moving, I have somehow lost the bottles of epoxy resin. I'm not sure if they were lost, or I threw them away, because from memory they were damaged and leaking from the original post from the US, but long story short - I thought I had them, and I don't.

I've emailed Pygmy to see if I can get some more sent out, awaiting their reply. It's not going to slow me down too much just yet, as I can keep working on the stitching, but hopefully I can sort something out soon with Pygmy's help.

If I did have to see a silver lining in this though, I'll be able to change the cure speed of the hardener. When I originally ordered the kit, I selected the slow speed epoxy hardener because summer in Canberra was coming, and the temps were normally in the 35-38 degrees (celsius) range, I figured I'd need the extra time. Now, in Armidale, the temps are much lower and we're going into winter, where temps are closer to 10-15 celsius daily and down to below freezing overnight.

And another (another) thing. I think I settled on a name for the Coho - 'Warrego'. The name of the street we lived on when I started the build, and also the name of a river in Queensland. I reckon it fits well. Also got me thinking about maybe some pinstriping for the join of the deck to the hull. Food for thought for later on.

Strips are finished

I completed the final joint reinforcement on the last four strips on the weekend. Now all I need to do before moving to the next construction stage is cut and file the overhanging fibreglass tape as I mentioned on the previous post. While this will take a while, I can get into them without having to wait for epoxy to dry as I have had to in the past, so a few afternoons after work this week should see me getting this done. The final eight joins being glued are below, weighed down with bricks to ensure a good join.

One thing I have noticed is that with the higher overnight temperatures (approx 8-9 degrees C) are helping the epoxy to cure a lot quicker. Most of my work is being done at night and then left for the next day to completely set. I ordered the slow setting epoxy due to the coming summer, and when I first began was having trouble getting it to cure properly. Now that we're not having cold nights and the daytime temps are hovering at around 26-28 degrees Celsius all the work has been fully cured by the next night.

The next step once I cut off the remaining glass tape is to drill the holes in the strips for the wire stitches to go through. I'm not sure how long this will take, but on the upside it'll mean I can get some good use from the sweet Makita cordless drill my father in law gave me as a wedding present. I also find that I've been using my dust/fume mask a lot with the sanding back and filing of the epoxy as the dust is very fine and probably isn't very good for me. It makes me look like some kind of biological soldier and it freaks the dog out. At least when I'm wearing it he doesn't drop his grotty slobbery tennis ball on my feet while I'm trying to work.

I'm looking forward to the next stage. I want to see a hull start to take shape dammit!

Replacement materials arrive

A nice surprise arrived yesterday, a package via courier with the replacement materials Pygmy sent me to make up for the stuff ruined by the leaking epoxy. Included were:

1. New heavy fibreglass tape;
2. Another sheet of fibreglass cloth (both this and the tape above has absorbed most of the spill);
3. More syringes, vinyl gloves, stirring sticks and light fibreglass tape;
4. Another copy of the Coho Manual and The Epoxy Book;
5. A sheet of Mylar (clear vinyl plastic) which had been discarded by FedEx;
6. Another 1 quart of resin (part A) and 0.5 quarts of hardener (part B) to replace that lost in transit. To say it was lost is perhaps an embellishment. I still had it, but unfortunately it was going to be a bit tricky to put back on the kayak where and when I needed it given it was nicely distributed throughout the box;
7. An empty resin bottle so I could use the hand pump more easily. I have been using an apple juice bottle which is just doing the job, but this will make it easier when I'm using more resin in the latter stages on construction.

Again, massive thanks to the guys @ Pygmy for all their help, it only took an extra 5 days to get all this all from the States to Australia. Pretty impressive I reckon.

Success... of sorts

On getting home yesterday afternoon I inspected the previous day's work to see how my first lot of panel-joining went.  All of the joins were bonded strongly enough to remove the weights, though some were still a little tacky and needed another day or so to finish fully curing. As is stands, I think I've joined together about 40% of the pieces now, and managed to glue another 4 together last night, so I think I'm sitting at a little over 50% completion for this stage of the construction. With a few warmer days on the way I should be able to get the rest of the joins finished by Friday and then they can fully cure while I'm away at the Hawkesbury on the weekend.

The lessons keep on coming however. In the manual it instructs to look over the wood panels to check for stamps on the timber put there by the mill, plus any stickers, marks etc. I did this previously when setting up and checking off the panels, but looks like I either did it in the dark or with my eyes closed, as on turning them over to check the underside of the joins that were among the first I set, I found these:

I had successfully epoxied over two mill stamps with expert precision. I figure I will possibly be able to sand through the epoxy once it's fully cured and remove them. The reason I didn't see them is that they were on the other side of the joins I was doing, and hence on the outside of the boat. If they were on the inside I don't think I would really care too much, as they'd work like an identifying mark of sorts, but I don't think I want them on the outside of the hull. After much colourful language and profanity, I also found two other stamps that I'd previously missed, and sanded them off. To quote George W. Bush "fool me once, shame on you, but... ahhh... fool me twice... you can't get fooled again".

Here's how sneaky they can be, this one was right on the join, and I wouldn't have seen it unless I was looking for them on the joins. Hence, here's Tip #3 on kayak building from the book of Coho: Check both sides of the joins before you let epoxy anywhere near them. It's like letting a dog run around unsupervised near setting cement - that mess is gonna be there for a while unless you catch it before it happens.

I guess if I have to leave them there it'll bring life to the notion that this boat will be personalised and I'll know each and every piece of it. In the scheme of things it probably won't be that visible, but it's annoying nonetheless.

Structurally, the joins are fine, hence the title of this post. And in that respect things are coming along swimmingly. I'm getting more confident using the epoxy, and starting to get a picture of the hull as it all comes together. If there was a Masterchef for kayaks, I reckon I'd still be in the competition. The taste is there, it's just that the presentation is lacking. Plus, Matt Preston is a jerk and I wouldn't take any of his crap.

Construction begins - gluing the panels.

After taking stock of what was and wasn't damaged in transit, I've worked out I can begin gluing the panels together while I wait for the replacements to be sent from the States as mentioned previously.

I began gluing the panels together on Sunday with the first of the hull strips. Each strip comes in 3 pieces, and need to be glued and 'glassed together to form one long 17 foot strip which are subsequently stitched to form the hull.

Thinking the cement floor of the shed would be flat enough to begin, I started laying the panels out and quickly found that my shed floor wasn't as flat as I'd previously imagined. Having already mixed some epoxy together though, I figured I'd already started and should get to it before it thickened too much and I'd wasted the epoxy.

I think the two panels I ended up doing on the floor will be fine, but to fix the problem and make sure I was working on a level surface, I went and bought 2 trestle tables for $40 each from Bunnings, plus 2 2400x1200 MDF sheets and laid these on top. The effect was so much better and easier that I wondered why I hadn't thought of it beforehand, and also allowed me to work standing up rather than hunched on the ground. Much, much, much easier! I knew I'd try and launch into this before being really ready but thought it'd be OK. Now I'm properly ready and have reinforced the importance to myself of reading the instructions properly before doing too much.

Getting get back to the construction process, to join the panels together, you first wet a bit of epoxy on both sides of the join, then lay a small strip of fibreglass over the top and wet it out. Finally, a piece of plastic is laid over the epoxy once in place, and weighed down to ensure they stay together whilst gluing.

Seeing the epoxy on the wood for the first time has given a sneak peek at what the Okoume will look like once the whole boat is epoxied. Looking good!

The bottle holding the hardener that I threw out was going to cause a problem in that I wouldn't have a suitable bottle to mount the hand pump on - or so I thought! In a stroke of genius I realised that 2l fresh apple juice bottles are the almost the same height and have the same size opening as the 1 gallon resin bottles that the resin is supplied in. It's just a matter of refilling the juice bottle from the milk bottle I'm storing the rest of the hardener in, and Bob's your mother's brother, we're off and racing.
One shortcoming I've had is that I ordered slow-setting epoxy as I'd anticipated I would be building this in the middle of a hot baking Canberra summer where temps can reach 40 degrees in the heat of the afternoon and tend to stay above 30 degrees until about midnight. Dad's kayak took one and a half months to arrive so I figured I wouldn't be getting down to business until at least November. Shipping of less than a week, plus a cold snap over the last weekend to remind us summer isn't quite here yet has wrong footed me a bit. Pygmy gives you the choice of slow (for hot climates), medium (medium, obviously) and fast (for cold climates) setting hardener in their kits. This might be premature, but I'd guess a medium hardener might have been more appropriate.  I've had to put a few little heaters in the shed while I'm working at night, to speed things along a little. Hopefully the autumn sun beating down on the galvanised roof and sides of the shed while I'm at work will create a little oven and effectively bake the stuff while I'm away. The fast hardener needs a minimum temp of 23 degrees Celsius to cure, so I'm sure it'll be fine by tonight and I can glue the rest soon. The strips are quite long so gluing them all in one sitting isn't really possible unless you've got a huge workspace.

One other reason I was a bit hesitant to glue too many was that working only from instructions means you're always a bit unsure whether you're doing the right thing. This way if I screw it up I only screw up 3 or 4 panels rather than all of them. I guess the moments of truth will come tonight when I get home and see how they've come out.

One thing's for sure - Tip #1: Make sure you get a decent work space to do these! So much easier on the tables than the floor!

Oh, and another lesson from the book of Coho - the reason the manual asks for 4 x cheap bristle paintbrushes is that it's pretty much impossible to clean the semi-thickened epoxy from a paintbrush after working with it, it's just easier to throw it out. When it comes to brushes, cheap is good here. Likewise the container used to mix the epoxy and dip your brush in. Tip #2: Start collecting margarine, butter, yogurt, and any other wide mouth plastic container once you decide to decide to build one of these, you'll need them!

The plot thickens... (unlike the epoxy)

I think I'm going to enjoy making so many crap jokes on here where no one can hear you scream...

Anyhow. According to Jim @ Pygmy, he sent the epoxy in a white Pygmy marked box, and it arrived in a brown FedEx box. Looks as though FedEx may have dropped it and then re-packaged it to make everything look legit again. He's been great, and with the help of a few photos is going to send out replacements for everything damaged by the leak, plus some extra part A and part B resin given I'm now a few quarts short of what I need. Now just to work out what the hell a quart is, those yanks really need to join us in the 21st century when it comes to measurements. I think it's somewhere less than a gallon, but more than a pint. Glad we cleared that up... maybe I should have asked for a bushel. Or a Hogshead. Perhaps a Firkin. Yep that's it. I need a ferkin firkin of epoxy.

What I'm getting at here is full marks to Jim @ Pygmy Boats Inc, yet again.


I cleaned off the bottles of resin last night and found one of them was still leaking, and the others' seals of the lids were shot. From what I can tell, some FedEx football player wannabe drop-kicked the original box off the plane, and it landed upside down on the tarmac and ruined everything. Had to transfer the part A remainder to some milk bottles as it has a leak, hoping the other part B bottles are fine now.

Poxy-epoxy

So when at first look I thought that there was no damage done by the leaking epoxy, I was wrong. I didn't know how much had leaked until I opened it properly in the shed to check everything off the list of contents. The three gallons I was supposed to have now look to have been reduced to two and a half, with the remaining half gallon (approx 2 litres) distributed throughout the box holding the fibreglass cloth, wood flour and assorted tools. The cloth has absorbed most of it and is hence now unusable, but I sent an email to Pygmy telling them what happened and asking for some replacements to be sent. I guess we'll see how it goes, but would expect most is covered by shipping insurance... and resin (Ha!).

 These one-gallon resin bottles were full when they left Pygmy's office, now re-distributed throughout the box & bag they were in. It's a stickiness like honey, but one that can't be washed off in soap and water. Only acetone or white vinegar seems to get rid of it.

 Ruined fibreglass cloth tape plus a fair bit of resin. Note the smudging on the yellow squeegee's text.

The shipping box and bag they were in. You can see the yellow liquid in the bag that wasn't absorbed into the cloth.


On the bright side, as the wood strips were in another box, they weren't affected by the spill, and all pieces have been checked and accounted for. Here they are laid out and ready to be joined together. Unfortunately as all the fibreglass cloth was ruined I can't get started in joining them together until I get replacements which I imagine might take another week or two. Here they are below.