Building my own Kevlar - Carbon canoe

The Layup Part 2

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Canoe Project Home - The Strongback - The Form - The Mold (part 1) - The Mold (part 2)
The Layup (part1) - The Layup (part 2) - The Layup (part 3) - Project Finish (gunwales) - Project Finish (floats) - Project Finish (seats)

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10-15-2005 - It was my intent to finish the hull layup today. With a forecast of mostly cloudy and 61 degrees the weather promised to be a good day for it. It ended up being too windy and threading rain before I quit for the day.

As you can see there is a gap on the port side where the hybrid cloth did not reach to that gunwale. I found that my 'fixing' the bulges in the first layer of Kevlar/Carbon caused problems with the second. If anyone reading this should make the same mistake I would advise you to cut out any bulges and waves in the fabric instead of trying to fix them. There are several places where the uneven surface snagged the fabric or would not lay flat to the first layer thus causing delamination.

Lacking anyone else willing (or able due to physical or time constraints) I drafted my wife into helping me to at least lay the fabric (hybrid and S-glass) on the layup. In fact she was a real trouper and helped with the spreading of epoxy all the time saying she could not wait until we could take out the boat. Even my protestations of the deformed nature of the hull and laminate could not deswayed her from being giving encouraging remarks. I am a lucky man, even if I forget it from time to time.

With my wife's help of today this has become a project of the entire family. This picture(taken by my 6 year old son) shows the port side of the boat in the process of being wet-out.

Even with the defects which show from the first layer of the Kevlar/Carbon fiber cloth the starboard side of the boat is adequate. This may be a funny shaped canoe, however, it should float which is better than the boat I do not have.

To the right is a picture of the bow profile with both layer of Kevlar/Carbon and S-Glass. I will need to reshape it after the laminate cures. I found that I needed to add patches to replace cut out areas. If you do this project make sure that you leave plenty extra length of your base fabric and S-glass (bow and stern). I cut mine to what I thought was enough extra and ended up needing to add more to the stern where the fabric did not cover.

Here is a close-up of the port side where I added patches of hybrid fabric to cover the expected gap because the 50" wide cloth does not reach gunwale to gunwale. The gap was larger than I expected (no doubt my own doing), thus necessitating more patching. All the the waviness in in the upper right corner of the picture should have been cut out (another lesson learned). Notice where delamination is taking place. This is due to the uneven surface of the first layer of fabric.

With the weather outlook uncertain and dusk fast approaching I had to stop for the night. This project would have gone much better (and a stronger boat) if all the layup had been done in one day. Notice the gaps of S-glass still needing to be filled on the bottom of the hull. I must now wait for another good day (and one where I have assistance) to finish the layup.

My wife's dogs Penny and Sunny even did their part today, they were confined to their kennel rather than having the run of the yard. Another lesson learned, do not leave your electric Kevlar cutters on a table when the dogs are in the yard. Yet another lesson, do not leave you expensive fabric in the shed no matter how well you think you have protected it. A local mouse family now has a home filled with shredded Kevlar/Carbon fiber and I have damaged cloth with which to build my boat.

10-19-2005 - Today I arrived home early and thus decided to work on some spots of the hull in the few hours of daylight remaining. As you can see there were air bubbles or places where the s-glass did not adhere to the underlying layer.

Here I inject the void with epoxy.

This is the resulting fix. The needle was too large gage and was hard to get through the layer, I even bent the needle.

After patching the rest of the hull (where the S-glass on the sides did not meet in the middle) I started to apply the last layer of S-glass. As you can see in the picture the final layer covers only the 'football' area of the hull. I started with the starboard side (again working alone), in wetting it out the layer of S-glass was pulled toward starboard slightly. I left it where it was. :)

10-20-2005 - Here is the last layer of S-glass. It was applied to the hull yesterday, however with the fading light I was not able to get a picture of adequate quality. This picture was taken after I cut the laminate closer to bow and stern profile of mold. I am sure glad I have a Dremmel tool. Due to the cold temps, some of the epoxy was still tacky this evening.

When I cut the bow profile I noticed that the laminate did not conform to the hull at the knee (or where the bow turns into the bottom of the boat). The same happened on the stern. If you look at the picture closely you will also notice the first layer of the hybrid fabric has not been bound to the other layers here thus I may need t make the boat a couple inches shorter.

This is the profile of the starboard side (and the better looking side) of the canoe with the last layer of the S-glass.

10-21-2005 - I was a month ago today that I started the layup. Today I filled some more voids and applied a final fill coat of epoxy. I also built the cradle to hold the hull for the next steps in the process.

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