Starting to look like a kayak rather than a canoe. 

Getting close to installing the recessed deck panel 

I do love that Saftey Wire Twister 

Wiring the deck! As with a couple different stages in building this boat, I was concerned about the difficulty of this step. As with all of those stages, it was not a problem. Maybe I am just lucky or got good advice from other builders, but my inclination is Pygmy Boats provides a superbly crafted kit and manual that allows a novice like me to succeed. 

Here is a little preview of what it will look like with the deck attached (minus the gaps) 

The stands I made are butt ugly, but they are sturdy... really they are... I swear 

Wipped out the old trusty Random Orbital Sander and whala 

I finally got a chance to build some slings and flipped the boat over. Wow, there are a lot of drips. I swear that I had tried to wipe up the excess epoxy on the fill coats, but apparently I suck at it. It kinda reminds me of the movie Alien(s). 

This side of the tape has a feathered edge, but I think the cabinet scraper will take care of that with ease. 

Things have smoothed out a lot with this coat and any concerns I had about my squeegee job have been put to rest. 

Last night I got my first layer of fill coat on the fiberglass and the keel tape down. It will take a bit of sanding and scraping to get it perfectly smooth, but I think I will be able to "bright" my kayak (meaning no paint to cover defects in finish). 

In the end it was not nearly as difficult as it seemed. It took me two hours, three disposable paint tray liners, three rollers, three sets of latex gloves and half a beer. This photo is in the morning after the fiberglass was applied and I have trimmed the excess cloth with a box knife. After 12 hours of curing, the excess fabric comes off like butter with my knife. Next up are more coats to smooth the surface and a lot of sanding. 

Whew. So instead of having a beer the fumes got me a little. Halfway through I decided an activated charcoal respirator would be a good idea. Excess epoxy is squeegeed out after rolling the epoxy over the fiberglass cloth. 

The bow angle is smooth enough to not have to be cut. 

The stern angle is too sharp to smooth the fiberglass over so it is cut up the middle and overlapped. 

Time to fiberglass the boat... Cross my fingers and drink a beer 

Now the clock is ticking. After putting down the saturation coat of epoxy, I need to fiberglass the boat before the epoxy hardens, otherwise I will need to sand all the surfaces...  

Pardon all the pictures, but this was a HUGE change in the look of the boat 

Precious... 

Oh my precious 

I noticed the the stern was not perfectly straight... but who is? I think I am the only one who would have noticed... if I had not just told you. 

The wood grain really comes through. (I'm using the excess epoxy to coat my work bench) 

Yee-Haw! How about that for bling bling. I finished up my sanding this weekend and put down a saturation coat of epoxy. Please note the Baby Monitor and instruction manual on the right. 

Another look at the stern seam 

At the bow and the stern we add thickened (with wood flour) epoxy. Once it is hardened, this seam will be rounded out so that the fiberglass cloth will lay nicely over the top.