Hi,

I just finished this step (almost) on my Tern. I did a Coho first and like you, could not help but want the Tern too. On the Coho I followed the Pygmy instructions and rolled on all the epoxy coats. I did not do a good job of removing the excess resin and so had an inconsistant result. This finally sank in when I started sanding the boat.

On the Tern I am following the Ted Moores (Kayak Craft book) method of application of epoxy with a brush to reduce the air bubbles that get into the epoxy and fiberglass weave. Takes more time but I am very happy with the results. On the fill coat, as I understand it, the objective is just to fill the weave and not to try to build up more epoxy than the top of the weave. I just poured on the epoxy and spread it around with a foam roller half. Then I used the plastic squeegee to level this layer down to the top of the weave. I removed as much of the resin as I could to get a nice level surface.

Then 4-8 hrs later you put on another thin coat to bury the weave of the fiberglass. I did mine with the foam roller with good results. Moores book indicates that if you roll on this 3rd coat you may need a 4th due to the thin layer the roller puts on. I am putting on a 4th thin coat tonight and I think the end result will be much better than my Coho.

Good luck, see you on the water.

Mike

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: I'm working on both a Pygmy Coho and Tern (I was so impressed with my test
: paddling that I bought two) and am just about to start on the fill coats,
: and it occurred to me that I don't have a clear picture of what my goal is
: in this step, nor the best technique to use to lay the coats on.

: (I searched through old posts [and found some good information!], but not
: specifically these.)

: (a) about how much epoxy are each of these fill coats going to take? I think
: the hull saturation coat took about 12-15 oz each, and the glass coat
: about 20 oz each. What's reasonable, say, 8 oz? or does it take as much as
: the "satch" coat?

: (b) if I use a squeegee, I can easily see how the weave will get filled, but
: isn't the squeegee going to scrape down to the level of the top of the
: glass weave, and thus sanding it later would cut into the glass?

: (c) if I use a roller, but don't have enough epoxy gooped into the roller,
: will it leave a coat that's too thin? (and if too dry, even pick up epoxy
: rather than depositing it?)

: how about the cut-in-half-roller-used-as-a-squeegee method? will that both
: lay in a decent coat of epoxy and not scrape down too hard against the
: glass?

: please give me the benefit of your vast collective experience!

: thanks,

: dan