Well....it isn't a wooly fiber...but it is fibrous...cellulose (Tencel, anyone?)!!! Mr. NK is building a wooden kayak from strips of wood....Western red cedar, Northern white cedar, and an amazing Alaskan yellow cedar that has no grain...very cool stuff. Well, this was the weekend to epoxy and fiberglass the hull. Mr. NK has been reading and reading, and checking out videos of others doing the deed, and was ready to go...so, this past weekend we went.
Day 1: Friday night. Coat 1. When you apply epoxy and fiberglass to a boat, you have to do it at around 85 degrees...I don't even want to think about our electric bill this month...
Day 2: Saturday. Fiberglass and coat 2. Mr. NK has transformed himself into a Ninja epoxy turtle man superhero, complete with a pre-cooled sweat-catcher-raggy-thingy!!! He is ready for the task at hand. We pre-heated the garage (i.e. drank coffee), applied the fiberglass, let the wrinkles straighten out (i.e. had breakfast at the local cafe), applied the epoxy (Dear Readers, your own NK was transformed into a resin weighing-mixing-pouring machine; the choreography I enlisted brought me to tears...ahem, perhaps the resin vapors seeped through the mask!), put on this other fabric that was supposed to soak up the excess epoxy, but that didn't go so well...took it off, and squeegeed the excess off. Turned off the heat and cooled down over Will Ferrell in 'Blades of Glory' playing at the local theater...God forgive me, I laughed my arse off.
Day 3: Applied another coat of epoxy. Used a foam brush to squeegee the excess. Worked pretty much like a charm.
Cooled down over a Stiegl..not really, but it sounded good. Mr. NK is a grad from UP and a 'Salzburger'...if you know UP, you know what that means!
A pretty nifty accomplishment for the weekend, huh? If you like what you've seen, go ahead and leave a comment if you have the inclination, it would really make Mr. NK's day!!!
5 comments:
Hi there - I just found your blog...so kewl that the first post I read is about strip-built kayaks. My father-in-law has built two himself. Hubby, aka Kayakboy, prefers buying them and racing. I prefer watching from the shore and knitting.
Di(Writer)
DH looks so cute in his Kayak building gear! (so do you, I might add) :)
You are in complete chemical warfare outfit!!
-Sean
Nice work, Mr NK (we know who you REALLY are!)... you should wear that outfit into MonkeyPark. Too bad you can't test out your kayak in the Willamette; the water'll eat right through the fiberglassing! :-)
Hey, those were great pic's. Thank you for posting them. And the dialogue to go with them was very refreshing, you have a great style!
My husband, like Pete, has a building project going on, but it's a plane. Here's a link to his log. Quite dry commentary compared to yours ;)
http://www.peabodypdx.com/Ray/buildinglog.html
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