Kayak Deck

The last time I blogged about the kayak project, we had just finished applying fiberglass to the outside of the deck.

While I was on the Colorado River trip, the deck remained on the forms while the fiberglass cured completely. This makes life easier since the deck retains it shape better the longer it cures.

While I was gone, Kathy constructed the coaming riser from short pieces of cedar strips, and then sanded and glassed the outside surface and applied resin to the inner surface. The next step was to apply florist foam around the outside of the riser and then apply grey tape over the riser and the foam. The grey tape will form the inside parting surface for the construction of a fiberglass coaming ring.

Since this process has the potential to be a bit sloppy, we created a dam around the area so that resin wouldn't run onto the kayak itself.

I don't have any pictures of the actual layup process. We used strips of 17 oz biaxial cloth like I used on the dory project. We wet them out on a plastic sheet, then rolled them up and applied them to the form. We ended up using four layers, working continuously around the cockpit.

The rough rim came loose from the taped form quite easily the next day. The rim was marked and then the excess was cut off from both edges.

The rim was attached to the riser using thickened resin and left to cure overnight.