Clearcoat & paddles

After a lot of sanding, followed by some more sanding, with sanding in beetwen I finally put the firs clearcoat on.additinal clearcoats will be added when the inside is fiberglassed. I just put this clear coat for "protection", and well, I admit, to see how it will look. And it looks really nice. Before I started putting the clear coat on, I put a plastic cover above the canoe, to prevent the dust falling on the surface from above, and it helped a lot. Since I will turn the canoe around in a couple of days, and start working on inside (more sandling), I figured I deserve a break from sanding, and I made 2 paddles, different models from the ones we already have. This pair of paddles is a traditiona "beaver tail" shape from Canada, suitable for long trips on flat water. I wanted them to be light, so I chose spruce for my wife's paddle (610 grams finished), and a combination of spruce shaft and larch blades for myself (820 grams), The spruce paddle is finished (I used Tung oil ), I still need to fine sand mine, and decide on a motiv to burn into the wood, and then protect with 5 coats of Tung oil (the first is substantially dilluted for the oil to penetrate deep in the wood, next coats are gradually less dilluted, and the last 2 coats are pure Tung oil). I also made the cunter ribs, which will be mounted to the strongback and they will hold the canoe when I tur it around and start working on the inside. I see more sanding in my future:)

SANDING AND ADDING ADDITIONAL COATS OF EPOXI

After the fiberglassing was done, there were some details that bothered me, namely, you could still see where the fabric was overlaping even after 3 coats of epoxy. So, I decided to do something about that, and despite different advice, I took a grinder, with 40 grit sanding disc, and started to sand away the epoxy on problematic areas. Boy, was I nervous, as I knew that I must not sand into the fabric itself, so I was REALLY gentle and concentrated. After the high spots were taken out, I sanded the whole hull with 180 grit, to achieve a perfectly fair surface, and then I proceeded with putting on another very thin coat of epoxy over the entire hull. And it worked like magic!!!. Now, even I find it almost impossible to say where the fabric overlaps. So, working with epoxy really makes you look like a pro, even if you are doing it for the first time ( the pros would used a lot less time then I did ).

The canoe looks almost like it is finished (the outside of the hull), so I am really having no problems with letting the canoe sit for a couple of days untouched, for epoxy to fully dry, before next sanding( final sanding before putting on a first coat of 2 part PU clear coat with UV inhibitors), and just comming to the workshop to look at it. But the spring is comming, and the canoe needs to be ready by then, so, I plan turn it around and start working on the inside in the next days!

FIBERGLASSING THE OUTSIDE OF THE HULL

Yesterday was the big day for my project, as I started fiberglassing the hull. As I was unable to obtain fiberglass fabric that would cover the whole width of the hull, I decided to do the fiberglass layup in stages. First we layed the fiberglass on the keel line, and cut a gap in the middle of it, so that the fiberglass would slide down and cover the sides of the canoe, and then, we cut a piece to cover the bottom, with approx 20 cm of overlay.We will see how this will turn out in the end, but I think that next time I will try to avoid cutting fiberglass and just do overaly of uncut fabric some 10 cm to each side of the kleeline. This way i will have a double layer on one of the most exposed parts of the canoe, and also the edge where one fabric overlaps another will be easier to hide. Now it looks like a have a lot of sanding to do if I want to achive smooth looks, which does not make me too happy. So, after the first coat of epoxy dried (but it was still far from cured), I did some light sanding and added a second coat to build up some tickhness. Now I will wait for the epoxy to fully dry (some 48h), and then sand the problematic areas, and add the 3rd coat, and then repeat if necessary. Big thanks goes to Anže, from LAKERCRAFT, as he volunteered and came by to help, despite the fact that he was leaving to Finnland the next morning, and had to atted a family meeting the same evening!

VISIT TO LAKERCRAFT

Today I visited the master boatbuilder Anže Logar and his company Lakercraft, where he is currently building a wooden river boat for transport of up to 60 passangers.

The boat will be used on Ljubljanica river which lazily sweeps trough the capitol city of Slovenia-Ljubljana. The level of workmaship and the quality of construction is on a very high level, and besides that, Anže also designed the boat, and made all the plans for it. No wonder if we know that he finished the 3 year study program for boatbuilding in Finland in one year, and he also has a previous wood engineering degree from University of Ljubljana. From the moment you step in the workshop, you can feel his passion for wooden crafts.

Today he was covering the bottom of the boat with fiberglass & epoxy, and I invited myself, to see how he does it, and learn something. It was very interesting, and I even tried to apply some epoxy to fiberglass fabric under his guidance, and the process now seems much less intimidating.

Anže really is a super nice guy, he builds great crafts, and he is willing to share the information and the knowledge he's got ( altough sometimes I have to remind him to use less tech languge with me, as I am far from engineering:) ). I must stop by his shop more often! So it was a very fun day in great company!

And of course I came home very motivated and finished sanding the hull, and if all goes well, tommorow I will glass it!

SANDING THE PRECOAT

After the precoat cured and dried for 24h I thought that it was time to sand it with 180 grit sand paper. But it seems that the 20 degrees Celsius (the temperature in the workshop) was not enought for epoxy to fully dry, so I was only able so sand it by hand, as the use of the electric sander generatet too much heat trough friction, and epoxy dust started to bond together in pieces of chewing gum consistency. So I only lightly hand sanded 1 half of the canoe, and let the rest cure for another 12 hours. But I got to put on the fancy suit:) (pleas consider that uncured epoxy dust is very toxic, so always use proper protection!!!). You can see the difference between the still shiny left side of the canoe and the dull sanded half on the right.

PREACOATING WITH EPOXY

I decided to do a precoat with epoxy, which basically means that you put on the canoe one coat of epoxy. The reasoning behind this is that the precoat seals the wood, and enables easier work when applying the fiberglas cloth, as when the wood is sealed, there is less chance of air bubbles forming underneath the glass fabric. Now it has to cure for at least 24h, and then I will sand it with 180 grit paper (to provide a good mechanical bond beetwen precoat and fiberglass), and after that, Anze Logar from Lakercraft will come by and show me a few tricks on how to work with fiberglass. To tell you the truth, I would like to leave the canoe as it is ( it looks nice to me, and I admit that I spent propably close to an hour in the workshop today just looking at it), as I feel nervous about the fiberglass laying process. But the best cure for that is to start right away, and if all goes well the outer side of the canoe should be done in one week. Exciting stage of the project for sure!