My First Stitch and Glue Canoe another fill coat..
Hello Folks
The next day I had some tidying up of the glass reinforcement on the bow and stern to do and as I was going to give that area another coat of resin I decided an extra fill coat would do no harm.
I began by sanding the reinforcements to feather their edges into the rest. No need to go too hard at it here and with the resin still slightly green power sanding doesn't help as the paper just clogs so this is done by hand with a block.
Then I proceeded a long the rest of the hull sanding the surface in preparation for just one more fill coat.
Here you can see the right hand side has been sanded and the left is still to do.
Then I hoovered up well before applying a final coat all over.
Then once again it was all left to set overnight.
Next day the first task was to trim the excess cloth from the hull edge.This can be done earlier when the resin is slightly softer and easier to cut but I had reached the end of the day so it became the first job in the morning.
The hull was then turned over and the sharp edge of cloth cleaned off down to the inwales and decks.
At this stage the tops of the decks could be sanded as the resin I put on them had set well.
In preparation for fitting the outwales I sanded the resin in the area where they are to be glued to provide a key and flatten any runs.
Then I cut the seats to size as I new I would be able to do this more easily before I had the gunwales in glueing mode.
I also rounded the seat support blocks and cleaned them up.
I test fitted the gunwales by clamping them. This was done so I could mark and cut them to exactly the right length. Note the blocks across the decks used to clamp the gunwale into a curve.
The gunwales are then removed and given a coat of epoxy on the edge to be glued. This is mixed first as a liquid with no additives which is brushed on and allowed to soak in with more being applied over a 30 minute period. Then the remainder of the epoxy has some microfibers added to it that help make it into an adhesive as opposed to a coating. This is brushed onto the gunwale in the same place and then the gunwale can be clamped to the hull and left to set. Here is how I finally clamp the ends.
I had a bit of time spare so used it to fit the seat support blocks which are screwed from the outside and epoxied in place being careful not to upset the clamped gunwales.
and that's where I leave it for now.
Thank you for reading.
Alick