Building my own Kevlar - Carbon canoe

The Layup Part 3

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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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10-22-2005 - Today I removed the laminate hull from the mold. I first pulled the sides loose and lifted from the bow. As I lifted the starboard side of the hull my six year old son lifted the port. The hull lifted off easily. I do not know if the ease of removal was due to the seven coat of mold release wax or the layer of epoxy (which cured to quick in the heat) I put on the mold which started my ill fated first layer of the layup.

There was of course damage to the mold, this picture show the damage caused when I attempted to fix a bulge in the first layer of Kevlar/Carbon fiber cloth.

This is a picture inside the hull of the bulge fix which caused the damage seen above. You will notice the light patch in the middle, it is a void with just a thin and brittle layer of epoxy over it. You can also see parts of the drywall compound which stuck to the hull.

From a distance it looks like a true canoe on the cradle, truth be told, it is far from finished.

This is a view of the hull as placed on the cradle (bow in the foreground). You can see some of the loose epoxy near the stern.

This is a closer view of the stern area of the hull, it is covered with patches of brittle epoxy and some drywall compound. This hull will requite a lot of sanding and maybe a layer of S-glass to make it smooth. I surmise the voids shown are the result of that first dreadful day. The light epoxy you see was applied it the mold before the cloth and started to cure before the layer was in the final resting place. Lesson here: once you get the cloth on the mold, do not move it if the epoxy has already started to cure.

Here you see the clamps as I seal the stern.

This is a view inside the hull toward the stern. I had one layer of hybrid (Kevlar/Carbon fiber) the full shape of the stern profile (wetout before clamping) and four layers of hybrid on the knee of the stern.

Just as the stern was clamped so was the bow. In both areas I had difficulty getting the clamps to stay on the hull, they kept slipping of the end. I was unable to get any clamp to hold on to the bottom part of the bow.

As with the stern, I sealed the bow with several layers of hybrid fabric. I even found a couple small scrap pieces of the hybrid and added them to the bow seal for good measure. Our forecast calls for rain the next four days and it is getting cold. Unlike the first day of my layup over a moth ago, the problem I am having with the epoxy is that it takes over 24 hours to cure at our current temps. I am concerned that I will have to shelve this project until spring due to temps. As it is I had to empty fallen leaves from the hull and it has only been sitting on the cradle for a few hours.

10-25-2005 - Today I added the the Kevlar and S-glass to the exterior of the bow and stern, again my error of previous steps came back to bite me. The profiles of both bow and stern are misshapen. As I have said before, this is going to be one ugly boat. I have run out of epoxy (see mistake number one) and found that the sides of the hull are not watertight. I will have to add a sealing coat of epoxy to the interior, this is needed to fix the rough bottom in any case.

The layup stage is at an end. I may add another internal layer of ether Kevlar or S-glass in the next stage.

Previous: The Layup (part 2)

Next: Project Finish (gunwales)