tern-14

Call me crazy, but I decided to try and use black epoxy for the deck seams. The materials involve black pigment and microfibres from Fiber-Tek.

It’s been a busy week with the kayak. I’ve managed to do the saturation coat, lay the fibreglass and do the first fill coat.

Gluing the seams isn’t as straightforward as you would think. From what I’ve learned (and I could be doing it incorrectly), gluing the seams involves:

I’m ready to glue the kayak hull. Click on the album below to find out more…

Building the Pygmy Coho has some good tips for S&G kayak building. Here’s a tip that I wished I had noticed earlier: “I cut a plastic cup to match the length of the stitching wires.

I started stitching the panels on the Tern14 the other night. I hadn’t done much work on the boat recently, and it was good to get into the shop and make some progress.

I finished the last butt joints tonight. My last 4 or 6 joints were significantly improved over the first ones. The finishes are smoother and I did them with less work.

Upon reading other people’s experiences with building pygmy kayaks, I’m rethinking the heating situation in the garage. It is becoming more and more apparent to me that I will continue to have difficulties working with the epoxy at the cool temperatures that my unheated garage provides (under 10C).

I finally figured out the best time for doing some work on “green” epoxy. Please note my specific environment. With temperature in the 6-8C range, and using the fast cure epoxy from System Three, I found that 24 hours was just about right.

Even though I am only a few days into building the kayak, I can offer some advice and 5 hot tips: 1.