Hello all,

Well, Louise and I have been gone (and temporarily out of the kayak building swing of things) for a bit more than a month now! We spent 1 week getting ready for 3 weeks in Greece and Egypt and then a week recovering. So, after putting all of our stuff away, doing some laundry, and beginning the endless task of sorting the 26 rolls of pictures we shot, we're back to work on our second boat, the Coho. I haven't posted anything about launching Louise's Osprey because it still needs deck rigging, a seat, and a paint job. Finally, on to the reason that I'm posting...

I was very surprised at how easy it was to cut a butt seam and redo it. We're building the Coho on the same table we build the Osprey, and there was a big epoxy drip right under the panels that I was joining. The result was a 1 1/2 ply lift on one end of the joint. Since I couldn't sand it down without going through a ply, I decided to cut the fiberglass with a razorknife. The joint had only been glass taped on one side, so after scoring through the tape a couple of times, I just flexed the joint and the boards popped apart. I figure that it was so easy because the joint had only been glued from one side and the epoxy had only been curing for 12 hours. Then I sanded off most of the epoxy and glass tape and redid the joint. I made sure that the table was flat this time.

Moral of the story, make sure the surface is flat before you glue a butt seam, and it's not the end of the world if you have to cut one. It would have been very traumatic, however, if this happend on our first boat. The first boat taught us the strengths, weaknesses, and forgiving qualities of wood, glass, and epoxy.

Later,

Tim and Louise, back in Los Angeles.