Coming Together

So, now that hull and deck have met their match, so to speak, my efforts are indeed starting to look like the Night Heron I paddled back last spring at the OkoumeFest.

But wait, we are not done! In fact, I am in no hurry because what's the point of having the kayak rearing to go for a spin on Feb 15th? Right - that's what I thought!

Besides the fact that there are actually lots more things to do before my vessel is ready to launch, I decided that being in a hurry was totally pointless - unless I were to take her to Florida or some place else warm. So, I am taking my time.

I am not certain yet on the final look of the boat either. This here Heron will be in greenery of sorts. So, I do have some green paint for the bottom but I am not yet certain how much of the hull to paint and how much to leave "bright", as they call it.

Obviously, after untold hours of work on the deck, it will be varnished bright. But with the hull I have yet to decide where to draw the line. Is it just going to be a plain vanilla "up-to-the-sheer line" or will there be some sort of design? At the moment the possibilities are just percolating and nothing has been decided.

Uncertainty can actually be a sort of delicious delight.

Meanwhile a number of tasks need to be accomplished before paint and varnish can be rolled on. For one, the sheer on the outside need a band of fiber glass. Not a favorite task but an important one to balance the fiber glass ribbon along the inside sheer line... to seal hull and deck forever more.

The afore-mentioned soft pad-eye slots needed to be filled with epoxy and re-cut since the green webbing I want to use is of a thinner gauge than the black default webbing I had used to test-size the slots. Not exactly fun to do something over but then it was a simple task though admittedly tedious.  Thanks to some nifty Dremel Tool attachments, it was manageable.

Then of course I had to glue on the previously assembled cockpit combing.

The round-over bit of my router did a quick but messy job on getting the inside of the combing to become very user-friendly.

Now I have to glue the webbing into all of the flanges that hold the webbing for the pad-eyes. Afterwards, they'll be dipped in epoxy and then will patiently wait their turn to be installed for the final rigging...

...not until after the final coat of varnish has cured.

So there you have it.