Carbon Fiber Layup On Coaming

The cockpit rims on these boats are being finished with a carbon fiber layup. The fabric is 5.5oz twill weave from U.S. Composites. I cut an oversized piece and laid it over the coaming and cockpit opening, gently smoothing the wrinkles and puckers by hand.

After I was satisfied with the way the fabric was laying I poured a generous amount of unthickened epoxy around the rim. I worked the epoxy into the carbon fiber using a plastic squeegee and a disposable chip brush. The squeegee was used to hold the fabric from sliding while I pushed and dabbed with the brush to work the epoxy into the fabric.

Once the fabric was thoroughly saturated I laid pieces of fiberglass cloth over top of the carbon fiber and wet out the fiberglass with more epoxy. I read so many posts on the forum warning that carbon fiber should be covered in fiberglass to help contain sharp splinters and shards in case it shattered, that I became convinced it was just a ticking timebomb ready to explode at any moment and shower any unsuspecting bystanders with "Carbon Fiber Shrapnel".

Coping With The Coaming

Plastic sheeting separates the laminations from the deck

The coaming is assembled from layers of plywood, laminated together. Reading the manual and picturing the assembly I could see this was going to be one of the more challenging tasks in building these boats. I again referred to Laszlo's wood duck blog, and the technique he illustrated for assembling and installing a laminated cockpit rim seemed much easier.
Laszlo recommends putting plastic sheeting on the deck around the cockpit opening and using the boat as a jig to glue up the pieces of the coaming. The pieces will form to the proper shape to mate to the deck, but the plastic stops them from adhering to the boat. Once the epoxy cures, the whole coaming assembly can be removed, allowing easy access to all sides for sanding and shaping.  Once all the rough (very rough) edges have been smoothed the coaming can be epoxied in place on the deck. When I used this method I only had to be concerned with cleaning up the squeezed out epoxy from one glue joint, not several.

The inside rim of the cockpit rim is easily sanded

Once shaped the rim is epoxied to the deck

Very little squeezed out epoxy to deal with using this method

Deck Glassing Part II

Fiberglassing the deck was significantly easier than fiberglassing the hull. The fabric was lighter and wet out easier, and the flatter surface kept runaway epoxy to a minimum. The glass drapes over the side of the boat and overlaps the hull by an inch. I followed the technique illustrated on this blog by Laszlo, as he builds a Wood Duck kayak. Two inch wide clear packing tape is applied to the hull one inch below the edge of the deck. The fiberglass cloth is wet out, applied to the deck, and wrapped around the sheer and applied up to the tape.

 Before the epoxy reaches full cure you gently pull the fabric away from the tape and cut/tear the cloth at the edge of the tape. Despite removing the packaging tape immediately after cutting the excess away I was still left with a lot of adhesive residue from the packing tape. I switched to blue painter's tape and did not have the same problem.

Blue painter's tape defines the edge for cutting away excess cloth

Rice paper logo graphic under fiberglass

Glassing the Deck

Sample rice paper graphic on scrap plywood

With the decks installed, preparations are made for fiberglassing the deck. "Preparations" almost always means sanding. In this case, there is much sanding, as well as the opportunity to personalize the boats. Pictured to the right is the logo created for the builds. This image is printed on rice paper with a laser printer and epoxied onto the wood under the fiberglass. The epoxy wets out the rice paper and it becomes mostly clear, and the fiberglass coat protects it from damage.  The logo will be applied to the rear of the deck, and I will also apply a compass rose graphic to the front of the deck, again using the printed rice paper method.

carbon fiber accent disguises forward deck scarf joint

In addition to the graphics these boats will have a carbon fiber accent piece on the nose. My preferred finish for the kayaks is a painted hull and a varnished deck. I don't want to say this too loudly, but I am not a fan of the all varnished finish. I like the way the polyurethane painted hulls resemble gelcoat, I also like that the painted hulls cover the scarf joints on the hull panels. My idea to disguise the scarf joint on the forward section of the deck is to epoxy down a triangular piece of carbon twill cloth. I laid a piece of fiberglass tape crosswise on the transition from cloth to bare wood to help feather it in without sanding into the carbon fiber.

Carbon fiber feathered into bare wood. A painted stripe will cover the transition.

Decking

Tie-down straps secure deck in place for nailing

Full sheets of plywood are laid on the hull and traced to the shape. Each piece is rough cut to size and secured down with straps. A marking jig is used to draw a line on the top of the deck for nail placement. Care is taken to place nails in the center of the sheer clamps.

The underside of the deck is coated with unthickened epoxy to seal it. The sheer clamps are coated with thickened epoxy, and the deck is positioned, stern section first.

The front section of deck is two pieces epoxied together with a scarf joint

The deck was nailed in position with bronze ring nails approximately four inches on center. The nails are redundant once the thickened epoxy cures. I debated not using the nails, but I could see the whole process going sideways without them.

Once the deck was securely attached, I used a jigsaw to trim close to the sheer, and finished with the block plane.

The glued and nailed deck is trimmed to the sheer

Prepping For The Deck Installation

Sheer clamps are planed to match the deck angles

Prior to attaching the decks a few items need to be completed while I still had full access to the inside of the hull. Many builders do the epoxy endpours after the deck is on, the manual's recommended approach is to dam up the ends and fill with epoxy.

Carbon Fiber tape epoxied to inside of hull for foot brace mounting

Kayak ends are filled with epoxy for strength

Installing Deck Beams

Jig for laminating deck beams

Both the Chesapeake 16lt and the Chesapeake 17lt require a pair of curved deck beams. A large one just forward of the cockpit opening, and a smaller one set near the bow. The larger of the two beams was made by laminating layers of 4mm plywood together on a jig. The smaller forward beam was cut directly from a piece of 1x4 pine.  With more forethought I would have made the laminated deck beam pieces longer and cut both beams from a single curved piece.

The directions call for attaching the deck beam with thickened epoxy and a single screw through each sheer into the beam. Like many builders on the CLC Forum, I opted to only use

Laminated deck beam is cleaned up and the sharp corners eased

the thickened epoxy and reinforce the deck beam with epoxy fillets. My thinking is that once the deck is securely attached to the deck beam and the sheer clamps the deck beams will be locked into position.

Deck beam clamped in position

Glassing The Hull

 I own a sign company, and a conservative guess would be that I have applied more than one hundred thousand square feet of PSA vinyl with a plastic squeegee over the past fifteen years. It turns out that when it comes to applying epoxy to fiberglass cloth, a plastic squeegee is not my friend. Rob Macks of Laughing Loon  recommends using a foam roller to wet out the fiberglass, he gives very detailed instructions in the shop tips section of his website.

Once I switched from the squeegee to the roller method wetting out the fiberglass cloth on the two hulls went very smoothly. The roller gave me more control over how much epoxy I was laying down. Putting the epoxy in a roller tray kept it cooler longer and gave me ample working time to get the batches on the boats.

My two favorite materials are diamondplate and carbon fiber, unfortunately I can't figure a way to incorporate diamondplate into a wooden kayak

Dollars & Sense

In my earlier posts I mentioned that I didn't expect to save any money by building from plans, vs. building from kits. It turns out there is a little savings. The price for two kits at the time I started this project, was $2000, add to that the cost of shipping the kits $250, and you have $2250. I live just far enough away from CLC's location that going to pick up the kits would have been possible, but wouldn't have saved much.

The materials list provided on the CLC site acted as my shopping list. Instead of buying two MAS #2 Economy Epoxy Kits, I purchased one MAS #3 Kit, and an additional gallon of resin and 1/2 gallon of slow hardener, this saved about $50. Sourcing the other materials was an enjoyable exercise. I searched the internet for suppliers and compared the costs to the CLC website, a tie or close to it automatically went to CLC, and I tried to place my orders in large enough amounts to garner free shipping.

The total "plans vs kit savings" was $559. Most of the savings came from eliminating the freight costs for shipping the kits. I saved some money on the fiberglass purchase, but I think it was because I was buying enough material for two boats,  The plywood also saved me a few dollars, but only because I had a good source for the Okoume. If I had been building a single boat the savings would probably have evaporated, and if I had to purchase a decent jigsaw to cut the parts I would probably come up higher. As I mentioned earlier, I didn't expect to save money by building from plans, I wanted to space out the costs over time. I also wanted the experience of making my own boat from a blueprint and a stack of raw material.

The Gluing

Carbon Fiber sleeves hold bungee that holds I-pod

Fillets provide strength to the joins between hull panels. The fillet is made by using an epoxy & wood flour mixture and spreading it in the seam between two panels. Much is written about fillets, the manual stresses the importance of good fillets, the forum discusses various techniques & tools used to get perfect fillets, and many builder blogs highlight the process.

Arriving at the point where I needed to start filleting my seams I had read everything I could find on the subject. It really boiled down to a few simple concepts.

Work Efficiently - I needed to plan the process, there are some great videos on YouTube that show the steps of filleting the seams in various boats. I watched the videos and mentally applied the techniques to my boat. Every process has bottlenecks, and I looked for the steps that had the potential to slow down the operation. I arranged my tools as I would need them, made sure I had plenty of mixing cups on hand, and cut my fiberglass tape to size.

Work Neatly - Simple steps like running a strip of tape along both sides of the seam with the desired width of your fillet in between kept my cockpit from becoming one very large fillet.

Work Quickly - The good news is that the Chesapeake kayaks can be done in sections, with the bow, cockpit, and stern sections separated by the bulkheads, I didn't need to attempt the whole boat in one go. However, once I started filleting a section I had to move quickly to get my epoxy mixture out of the cup and into the boat before it stated to firm up and became unworkable. Each fillet was then covered with fiberglass tape, while still wet, and the tape was wet out.

The manual presents two different approaches to addressing the copper wires when doing your fillets. The first approach is to leave the wire in place and run your fillets over the wires and encase them in epoxy. The twisted section of the wire on the outside of the hull is snipped off and filed down once the epoxy fillet has cured. The second approach is to tack the seams together with small dabs of epoxy/wood flour mixture. These dabs are placed between the stitches, and once cured will allow you to remove all the wire stitches before filleting.

I tried both techniques, on the 17LT I left the wires in, and on the 16LT I removed the wires. On any subsequent builds I will certainly remove the wires. The manual says when you leave the wire in, just cut it as close to the outside surface of the hull as you can and file down the nub. The manual does not say what a pain in the butt this is.

The Stitching

Chesapeake 16lt takes shape

Building from plans means you get to turn a few 4'x8' sheets of plywood into a boat. Seems a bit obvious, but actually seeing the boats take shape was a little amazing to me.
Once the hull panels are wired together the boat is checked for fairness and twist. The wires are tightened and the hull now has a surprising amount of strength.

CLC manual gives detailed instructions to check for twist

A Boat Begins To Form

Hull side panels are stitched together at the bow & stern and a spreader stick placed amidship

Hull panels are stitched together with 18 gauge copper wire. CLC sells rolls that can be cut to 4" lengths for stitching A common occurrence, according to the Boatbuilder's Forum, is for first time builders to run out of copper wire. I found a roll of wire on Amazon.com for around $25, and it will probably last me two more boats. 

Thoroughly reading the manual and browsing the forum before beginning stitching was a great help at this stage. Many other builders outlined the obstacles they ran into stitching their boats together, and more importantly, indicated the best ways to avoid or overcome those obstacles. Reading the forum and other build blogs was useful throughout the entire process.

Hull bottom panels are stitched together, & then stitched to the side panels

Amazon.com was my source for the 18 gauge copper wire

Help Is A Mouse-Click Away

So, you're building a boat in your basement? There's a "Support Group" for that. I've done my share of internet forum surfing, forums are great sources of information. The CLC  Builder's Forum is an exceptional resource for boatbuilding. I've spent many hours going through the forum topics, reading several thousand posts on all topics.
The "experts" are knowledgeable, encouraging, courteous, and extremely helpful. This forum is a treasure trove of terrific information freely shared in a friendly environment.

Most common piece of advice on the CLC forum - You can't have too many clamps.

One good thing about building two boats at the same time, is being able to try different approaches to the same task to get better results. When I glued the sheer clamps to the hull side panels on the Chesapeake 16lt I wasn't as careful with the excess glue as I should have been, the panels ended up being a little stuck together and were difficult to separate. When gluing the 17lt I was much more careful and the panels came apart easily.

The sheer clamps are long strips of 3/4" stock glued to the tops of the side panels, the deck will attach to these.

Cutting & Shaping Hull Panels

Stanley Block Planes

My dad always called himself a Jack of All Trades, and he had an extensive tool collection to support that statement. When he passed, most of these tools came to me, including a great set of Stanley block planes. "The New Kayak Shop" makes a point of noting how enjoyable it is to shape the parts of your boat with a sharp plane, this enjoyment was compounded for me by using these inherited tools. The hull shapes are drawn onto the wooden panels, then these shapes are cut slightly oversized with a jigsaw, and a sharp block plane is used to cut them to the exact size and shape. The two hull bottom panels and the two side panels are each clamped together in pairs and shaped with the plane.

Hull bottom panels are clamped together and shaped with a sharp block plane to make sure they match each other.

Building From Plans

Scarfing panels together is a great experience, helps to have a 16' long workbench

When deciding whether to build from a set of plans or assemble the parts from a kit, I was really deciding to lay out $2000(the cost of two kits) in one lump sum, or in smaller increments by purchasing materials as I needed them. I did the math and I wasn't expecting to save any money going with the plans, but I did have a good local source for the lumber and that helped me make up my mind to go with the plans.

A strip of 1/4" thick aluminum made a great batten to trace the curves

The Choice - Which Boats To Build

Plans & Manual Are Complete And Easy To Read

The Chesapeake Light Craft website does a great job helping prospective builders find the right kayak for their build. Consider what type of kayaking you would like to do, decide how challenging you want the construction to be, and review their kayak fit chart to get a boat that fits your body size.

Building Stitch & Glue Sea Kayaks... An Idea Takes Hold

Basement Workshop - 16' long workbench on sawhorses

I am not sure when the idea first occurred to me to build a pair of sea kayaks, but it took hold almost immediately and I needed to do very little convincing to talk myself into it. I've been paddling kayaks since my early 20's, ( at least 25 years) mostly river kayaks, always plastic, but the fiberglass and composite sea touring kayaks have always attracted me.

Recently my wife, Maria, and I have taken to paddling in the coves and open stretches of Barnegat Bay, we quickly realized that the sit on tops and river kayaks we were using were not up to the task. The short river boats were pushed around by the wind and waves, too much energy was wasted trying to get them to track. The sit on top kayaks were bulky and sluggish, and energy was wasted keeping them moving at anything resembling a decent speed. .

I originally considered purchasing used plastic touring kayaks, and while searching online for touring boats I found a reference to a book, The New Kayak Shop, by Chris Kulczycki, the book led me to the Chesapeake Light Craft website, and I realized for what I was willing to spend on a plastic boat I could build a lighter, sleeker, and more attractive boat. Of course I would need to build two boats, but there would be economies of scale building two boats at one time. With a full basement as my workshop I could fit both projects in side by side, like I mentioned earlier very little convincing was required.

CLC (Chesapeake Light Craft), gives builders the option of buying any of their large selection of boats as a complete kit, or just purchasing the plans. The kit will include all the materials, cut to shape on a CNC machine as well as all the supplies necessary to build the complete boat. Builders who opt for the plans only can find a list of materials and supplies necessary to complete the project on their webpage. All of which can be purchased from CLC, or sourced from other vendors. I will point out that on almost all the materials and supplies CLC's pricing was very competitive. As a "plans builder" savings were available by purchasing some materials locally and  avoiding paying freight, but many of my supplies were purchased from CLC in a large enough order to net free shipping. My decision to purchase plans was more a desire to spread the cost of the build out over time, than to save any money.