Fiberglassing the Exterior Hull

Well here is the canoe with fiberglass placed on her prior to the resin coat being wetted on.  Notice a crease in the cloth, but it did not appear to be an issue after wetting it out.  I did the first wetting and then sanded and then did a second and third wetting, but these last two had a chemical bond.

Here is what it looked like after the first wetting.

Now here she is after a second and third wetting and the excess cloth trimmed off.  I was nervous and did this fiber glassing but it went well, just took my time and did not panic.  Any rough places that had the stem fiberglass wrapping around was sanded in well with the other cloth to be smooth, just one small bubble that I sanded back to wood and another section that was accidentally sanded back to wood that were both patched prior to the second and third resin coats....can't notice them.

Now here she is after being taken off the forms and turned over, I have since started to scrap off the glue inside, hope to finish that tomorrow to begin sanding.  One big concern that I now have is that when cleaning up the stem area inside I was over zealous with the chisel and may have cracked the fiberglass on the extreior of the stem or that may have happened has a stress fracture when removing the stems, which I had to modify after the fact during the construction.  Either way I was alarmed.  I also noticed how fragile the strips are at the impact point of the stems, I hope that the resin filled will strengthen this up and easy my worries.  I am also toying with the idea of putting a extra piece of fiberglass inside the stems like I did outside to add strength.  Once it is all fiber glasses inside I will evaluate if the exterior stems need an additional piece of fiberglass cloth added and then feathered into the existing cloth before moving ahead with the wood work and varnish.  I will let you know how this goes.

First Coat of epoxy and Stems Fiberglassed.

The first two photos below show the stem area after the final sanding and after the first coat of epoxy and with fiberglass put in place at the stem. It was the first fiberglass that I ever wetted out and it turned out fine, the second stem was even better.  Ron Chafe gave me a hand to epoxy the hull and it sure was nice to have an extra set of hands, thanks Ron.

Here is a view of the hull after the initial epoxy coat, looks nice.

I don't think that the screw holes that I filled in previously wit epoxy and sanding dust from the pine will be as inconspicuous as I would like, but I knew that they would be slightly visible.  Perhaps with a couple of layers of fiberglass they will be less noticeable.

First Sanding complete

Last week I finished sanding the canoe for the first time, now have to use resin to patch some gaps and holes and cracks, then a second and/or final sanding.  Here are some new pictures, the first ones are just after sanding and the others are after the canoe was dusted off and then wiped with a damp rag to bring the grain to the surface prior to another sanding.

The Hull is filled in and Staples have been removed

Well it has been a bit of a struggle getting the strips to round the stem forms.  I was forced to use a old style coping saw to get under the strips and cut off a part of the stem form to get the strips to sit better,  It worked better, but I was left with a small indentation towards the stern, but a little fill, sanding, and if needed a little cheating with some extra fiberglass cloth will deal with that. The staples are removed and now I have to scrap off some excess glue before I begin sanding.  Pictures below give some indication of the canoe shape in its rough form.

Trying to Round over the Stem Forms

Well It has been a few hours here and a few hours there and recently my great friend Daryl Pinksen visited and gave me a hand to lay up strips on the canoe.  We both discussed with amazement at how much that we were able to bend and shape the strips against the forms.  We did a great job working towards the top of the forms, but I did not shape the top of the stem forms narrow enough for the strips to lay flat enough and as we went I gradually took more and more of these forms off to get the strips to sit well.  That was going well, but when we got to the top I was not pleased with how one strip was sitting and the damage we did to the strip we layed below it.  In my frustration I removed the strip we  just tried to put in place and then thought I could remove the stripe we had placed below it...bad idea, I made a minor cosmetic issue into a bigger cosmetic issue.  We cut our loses and cut the strip and did a flat end to end join as best we could after we tried to clean out the cove to get it to sit in.  I was disappointed at this point because we had did such a great job up to that point, but the fix up was ok.  Have to remember that at the beginning of this project that the goal was to learn about woodworking and canoe building on this project and that mistake was a great learning opportunity,  Once I get some epoxy on it later and some filler in place no one will notice the mistake except me.

Here are some pictures

Above and below is Daryl, getting us ready to glue on another strip.

 It is easy to see now in hindsight that the top of the stem is not bevelled enough before it was rounded over

 You can see how the top strip on the right side above is not laying as it should and that it should be laying flatter.  Recently I have pulled staples and screws in that area to try and get under the strips and take more off the stem form to correct this.

 Below you can see where I tried to flat join two strips after not being able to remove it to replace it with another strip, just made a minor problem into a bigger problem, but this is not a deal breaker.

 Above you can see better how the strips are not sitting flat enough and have created an uneven space between the strips.  I am presently trying to get under the strips and chisel out some of the stem to get these strips to sit flatter to reduce this imperfection.  Learned a valuable lesson here that the stem forms at the top need to be angled in before rounding over to allow a better uniformed fit.  You can see this imperfection below as well.

Above you will notice that once the stem form issue is worked out that things should be ok and hopefully it will be unnoticeable.