Day 6

Well... it is Saturday... so whats the hurry, I say.  Again it was a leisurely start to the day followed by the almost mandatory trip to the local Bunnings (hardware store for the uninitiated) and there to buy epoxy (to slop around the joints so as to add some water proofing to the glue) and a timber coating.  But first I had to visit the bike shop, as one does, cuz I really need a new tyre, some new spokes, a new tube and odd sundry bike stuff.  

Back to Bunnings.  I ended up getting a nice bevy of stuff including ADOS Epoxy All Purpose Resin; CD50 made by Churton Pacific Limited as a timber coating and preservative, some rubber gloves (you should have seen the mess I made of my hands with the Gorilla Grip glue) a couple of very cheap paint brushes and some sand paper.

So I....

1.  Sanded the timber bits with particular focus on any sharp edges that may impact the covering fabric.  

2.  Resin'd up all the joints.

3.  Coated the entire kayak frame with the CD50 stuff.  This took about an hour and 15 plus clean up.  

The end result was a kayak frame that I really don't want to cover now, because it looks so nice.

The building process has become a bit of a tourist attraction, so much so that I might just ask Tourism NZ for sponsorship.  Besides the various neighbours who, in their own way, have all had a look, I chatted to a Mr Chin.  He is Chinese of indeterminate age (but something over 60 I guess).  Between my bowing and arm waving pantomime and his chinglese we communicated quite well, I thought.  He bought is daughter in law and grand daughter back today to check on progress.  Then a bloke called Graeme wandered in to have a look.  He was highly impressed with the speed of construction, which was nice of him to mention.  Also had a old pommy guy and his wife stop by and tell me that they have been watching progress on a daily basis.  They were wondering when I am going to the Olympics.  :-).  Nice people... don't you think?  Anyway... if you live in Christchurch and are coming down Papanui Road toward the city, look left as you pass the St Albans Church.  Then drop in and have a chat.  If nothing else you will have some good stories to tell the folk back home about a mad kiwi and his kamikaze kayak.

No word of the fabric so I guess it will turn up on Tuesday.  Bother.

I was too chicken today to attack the coaming, so will start that tomorrow.  I am going to see if I can build it out of 7mm ply.  Why?  Cuz that is what I have.  If it does not work then I will go to plan B... which I will make up should it be required.

There are some photos below of the ingredients and me sitting in the darn thing. 

Applying the CD50.

Which looks like this.

The epoxy resin was this brand

I sat in it... of course I had to.  All of a sudden the Kayak felt very small and I felt very big.  I only just got my legs under the No4 profile (near my knees in the photo).  And this was after I had already added about 1.5cm to the opening height.  It will be fun when I launch it just to see how much freeboard I actually have.  I am guessing not much.