Fiberglassing the Interior

As Ted Moores states in Canoecraft about working on the interior, "most amateur builders find this stage the least pleasant because it is dusty, uncomfortable, and frustrating to work on the awkward inside curves." As all ready stated about the sanding, the awkward curve is very difficult to sand. That being the case, multiple coats of epoxy resin needed to be poured onto the 4oz. fiberglass, because smoothing out the curve is more difficult on the inside than on the outside. Doing the same process as before, the fiberglass was smoothed out and hooked to the edge of the stern-line with clothes pins. The cloth was wetted out and after it dried the excess cloth around the stern-line was removed with an exacto knife. 6 oz. Fiberglass taped was placed on the keel-line to help strengthen the places where the strips didn't fully touch. Three additional coats of epoxy were applied to fill out the weave and ensure smooth continuity on the surface of the interior. However, near the stem the epoxy began to pool between the white oak and the cedar strips, which started to glob together and was hard to fix because of the tight space to work in. Nevertheless, most of this area will be covered with the deck and will not be visible. The next step was to make the gunwales.

Sanding the Interior

Sanding the interior of the canoe was not as time consuming as sanding the exterior. At least, it may have felt that way because I had the entire day to work because of Spring Break. Even though I had more hours to work, the process was more difficult because of the tumblehome or the curve of the canoe. Using an orbital sander, the sides of the sandpaper were quickly used up because more tension was being placed on them. The sanding was very tedious and tiring just like the exterior, and so I began to listen to another audiobook. Noticing many openings between the cedar strips, I decided against using wood filler, but used epoxy mixed with cedar sawdust. This was a good idea, except that it turned the color of the wood darker than I was expecting, but it does not look bad. It just darkens the naturally lighter cedar. I put to coats of this epoxy mixture on to ensure filled in cracks and a smoother interior. But like Ted Moore's states, you know what the end result of fiberglassing can look like, so you feel more compeled to take your time. The next step was to fiberglass the interior with 4 oz. cloth.

Flipping the Canoe over

This is probably the only time, flipping the canoe is a good thing. When floating down the river, a flipped canoe isn't all too great. Nevertheless, before the canoe was flipped over, it needed something to hold it when flipped. I know some canoe builders use saw horses, but I didn't want to scratch the bottom of the hull on wooden horses. So generally following the plans to build a cradle, from Ted Moore's Canoecraft, I built my own deviation from it with scraps of lumber from my garage. After the two cradles were built, I unscrewed the stations from the strongback and pulled up on the stern, but it didn't budge. Realizing some epoxy had glued a station #7 to a 2x4, I broke the epoxy bond and the canoe lifted off the frame. It felt weird seeing the underside of the canoe for the first time, since I had become so accustomed to seeing the outside of it. There was a lot of glue and wood filler that had made it's way through the cracks and holes, but, in all, the inside looked really good. It just needed a lot of sanding.

Sanding the Fiberglass

After the third coat of epoxy dried, the next step was to sand the fiberglass smooth. Especially near the fiberglass tape and the double draped cloth towards the stern, the fiberglass had to be sanded down smooth to create the "glass" look. Starting with 80, 120, and 220 grit, the canoe felt smooth yet some of the cloth was nearly exposed after the sanding. So I mixed up another batch of epoxy, and spread it smooth over the entire canoe. Even though there were very small streak marks from spreading the epoxy, I decided that wet sandpapering the canoe would be futile because it would have to be done again. Also, I waited to apply Marine Varnish for the same reason. The canoe looked very "canoey" but I still had the entire interior of the canoe that needed to be finished.

Fiberglassing

After the blog post about how to mix the epoxy for fiberglassing, it is time to post about the actual fiberglassing. The process is actually quite simple, seeing that I read so much about it that I was so nervous. But my neighbor was there to help me apply my first coat and he assured me that it was not that complicated. The night before I had clean the canoe surface with a cloth and had blown out the entire area around the canoe with a pneumatic blower. Before fiberglassing, I thought sanding would never end and I thought of giving up the whole project all together, because of the monotony of it, yet the fun of fiberglass totally made up for it. First, I laid out the 4 oz. cloth and wet it out with the mixture of epoxy and hardener. After 24 hours, when this dried I did it again. So now I had 8 ounces of cloth all the way around the entire canoe. However, after each cloth dried, the excess had to be cut off with a knife or scissors (which ever was more accessible.) The bottom picture is the canoe after two coats of epoxy. I laid 6 oz. Fiberglass tape on the stems to ensure strength and the tape needs a couple more coats to fully wet out. But in all this step was a lot of fun because you could see the beauty of the colors become very vibrant, when you were so used to seeing whitish sanded wood. The next step is to sand the fiberglass to ensure that it is smooth throughout...

Mixing Epoxy for Fiberglassing

As stated before, the next step was to fiberglass the canoe, so I decided to make a post about how I mixed the epoxy resin. I know that from the preliminary setup I said I was going to buy West System, but after talking with my advisor, I learned that US Composites was a much cheaper and even better product. It was a better product because it could be handled without gloves or respirator mask, not to mention that it more user friendly for novice fiberglassers like myself. Buying the 2 gallons of 635 Thin Epoxy Resin Sytem kit which included 85 oz. of 3:1 Medium Epoxy Hardener, I thought a 3:1 ratio would be the best because it does not dry too slow or too fast. Also I bought a 25 pack of 5 in. squeegees, which were life savers, 2 mini pumps, and 20 yards of 4 oz. Fiberglass. Usually cedar strip canoes are glassed with 6 oz. cloth, but my advisor said that using 4 oz. cloth is much easier to work with than the heavier 6 oz. Also, I bought a 36 pack of 2 in. brushes from Harbor Freight Tools. These were the all the materials that I bought, and yes I did buy extras. The actual mixing of the epoxy was quite simple. The first step was to measure the weight of the cup or container. I used a Fage Yogurt Container. Then place the scale on how much 635 epoxy you want (around 300g -400g) After pouring in the epoxy, it is important to remeasure the scales to determine how much you actually have. Subtracting the cup weight from the total sum and dividing by three, that is how much hardener you need to add. Adding the hardener amount to the cup and epoxy, not just epoxy, you need to place the scales at that weight. After everything is poured in, it needs to be mixed with a drill. I used an electric drill and a mixer my neighbor gave me. With the epoxy and hardener mixed, I could now pour it onto the canoe.

Wood Filling and Sanding

After the cedar strips and stems were finished, the next step was to wood fill and sand the strips smooth. Buying Elmer's wood filler, multiple brass screws and 80, 120, and 180 grit from Lowes, the next step was not only time consuming but a bit monotonous a times. Starting out by filling in the hull and the staple holes, I tried to fill in all the gaps between the strips. If I was to do this step again, I would not have mixed in cedar saw dust to the wood filler because this lessened the effect of the filler, which was generally sanded off instead of bonding the gaps. While listening to an audiobook on my itouch, the time seemed to pass a little quicker as I moved from 80 grit sandpaper to eventually 180 grit. At the end of sanding, the garage would have been filled deep in dust were in not for the box fan filtration system and good weather to keep the garage door open. The next step was the much look forward to step. Fiberglassing...