Building an Outer Island

Fiberglassing

While this type of kayak is usually just referred to as a cedar strip kayak the deck and hull is actually a sandwich of wood with fiberglass cloth on both sides. This gives the hull and deck a lot of strength and makes it very stiff. Depending on how many layers and the "weight" of fiberglass used it can be made to be more durable than a kayak built on a mould with just fiberglass.The more fiberglass you add the heavier the boat wil be. I went for a balance such that I'm hoping that it will weigh in at about 45 pounds, which should make it plenty strong.

The first piece of fiberglass.

In the picture above I've laid the first piece of fiberglass onto the deck. This is an additional layer of fiberglass which will strengthen the area around the cockpit.

The hull gets two layers of fiberglass too.

Another layer of 4 ounce fiberglass cloth goes over the "football" shaped piece. Underneath both of those layers is a 3" wide strip of 9 ounce fiberglass tape to provide additional abrasion protection.

The inside of the hull gets one layer of six ounce fiberglass cloth.

Here I have layed out some six ounce fiberglass cloth on the inside of the hull. The clamps hold it into place until the first coat of epoxy/resin goes on. Then it will get two more coats of epoxy resin to fill in the weave

A side view after glassing.

I taped the hull and deck together after glassing so that I could move it out of the basement to deal with a bit of flooding. The reason that the deck looks much lighter than the hull is that the deck has been sanded which gives it a dull finish. It will brighten up once varnish has been applied. As you can also see in this picture I've started work on the cockpit

It's starting to look like a kayak.

You can really get a good idea of what the completed boat is going to look like here.

Another side view after glassing.

Here is another side view of the kayak after the deck and hull have been fiberglassed inside and out. I'm mostly finished with the fiberglass work at this point. There is a bit of outfitting to be done which will be much easier if it's done before the hull and deck are joined. The next page shows some of the outfitting.

Building an Outer Island Kayak