>

> Excess epoxy is the most likely cause of a boat coming in overweight.
> Two places to look are 1) size of fillets between hull panels. It's
> easy to make these too big (and too heavy) and 2) thickness of clearcoats.
> I just finished a week-long couse at Wooden Boat School building wood
> strip kayaks with instructor Ted Moores. The biggest thing I learned
> is how to control epoxy clearcoat thickness with a squeegee. I think
> he covers his technique in his book CanoeCraft.

I dont think it is the epoxy!!! I built the Pygmy "Coho" 17' 6". The kit came with 2.25 gal of epoxy. I used about 2.5 gal to finish the boat. I made several changes that added weight: All my fillets were thickened with wood flour and milled fibers (very heavy), wider tape was supplemented for the supplied, end pours were larger and also made with milled fibers, extra glass was applied in stress areas and I filled the weave on the inside. The hull is glassed inside and out and the deck is glassed on outside, with fillets and tape on inside of deck. I added bulkheads and hatches. one of the bulkheads is made of hardwood strips (heavy). The total weight of the boat with seat, backband and deck rigging is 42#. The weight before bulkheads and hatches was 39# (weighed on a scale that is certified by my county weights and measures). 39# is Pygmy's advertised weight.

Pygmy and ClC designs and construction methods are completely different and I would not expect the weights to be the same for a given lenght boat but, curiously the advertised weights are very similar. This bbs is a great place to find out the truth before you build and maybe help keep some people honest. The main reason I built a S&G kayak was to save weight over my 62# plastic kayak that has an advertised weight of 52#. If my boat came in at 56#, I would be very unhappy to say the least!!