: Howdy Lee! I'm ready to chop the 18 into 3rds, but I'm leaning towards
: waiting on installation of the extra bulkheads til after she's apart. I'll
: leave the existing bulkheads in the cockpit section, then use that as a
: template to mark out the new bulkheads for the compartments.

Unless the cockpit is already tight, I'd put in the secondary bulkheads from the cockpit before cutting apart the boat. This would reduce the interior of the cockpit by about an inch.

I'd go to the auto parts store near me and buy a roll of cork gasket material. This is in thicknesses of 1/8th inch or sometimes thicker. If I thought I needed thicker material I'd laminate two sheets together with a contact cement to get 1/4 inch thickness.

I'd cut 10 small pieces from this gasket and attach 5 to each of the current bulkheads with a small amount of rubber cement.These serve as spacers. I want them to stay put, but to come off easily later. One would go about 2 inches above the keel and the other 4 would be spread evenly around the perimeter of the bulkhead, and about 2 inches in from the hull.

I'd temporarliy fit the second bulkheads and press them into place, pressing them up against the gasket material spacers. Then I'd remove those bulkheads and drill a few holes from the inside of the kayak out, right alongside the currnet bulkhead, so I'd have a place to start my saw.

I'd then mount the second bulkhead and fillet it, but no need to tape it yet. I could drill through it and fasten it to the original bulkhead with small screws or bolts, with the intention of later redrilling these same holes a bit larger for inserting the mounting bolts.

With the two bulkheads installed and spaced 1/8th to 1/4 of an inch apart you have a natural pocket to guide the saw as you cutthe boat into pieces. The parts that are cut off will have the correct shape and be properly supported so they don;t change shape.

just some thoughts

Hope this helps

PGJ

Basically,
: I'll just trace around it, reduce it by the thickness of the wood and
: glass, then glue it in). 6mm, you think? Then glass the outside, of
: course. I'm thinking just regular stainless machine bolts with fat fender
: washers and some kind of gasket. I can wrench-tighten them, no problem.
: What are your thoughts?

: Also, any good online sources for some custom
: duffles for the sections?

Why go online when you can deal locally and make a few new friends.

Head over to the nearest store that sells sewing machines. Most of the sales people there will be women who have made sewing and crafts their hobbies over many years. Tell them you need three large anvas bags and ask if there is anyone in the shop who would be interested in a small job of making them. If none of the employees are interested, there may be some business cards on the wall from people who sew. Copy down the names and numbers. Unless they give you a lower bid, offer $10 - $15 for their labor per bag and you supply the material.

The work involved is to make a drawcord pocket about an inch to 1.5 inches wide on one edge. Then the fabric is folded so the openings on the drawcord pouch match up, and the side seam and the bottom seam need to be sewn. You can tape the end of a piece of 1/8th inch nylon rope to the end of a pencil and push that through the drawcord pocket yourself after the sewing is done.

Sizing the cloth needed for your bags: The bags can be simple cylinders, which will be a bit "baggy", or you can taper them to fit the profile of your boat better, which is much more of a problem. I'd go with the "baggy" look myself, and make the length of the flat, unfilled bags equal to the length of the boat section plus the width of that section.

If you have a boat section 5 feet long, and the maximum width of that is 18 inches, then your flat bag would be 78 inches long, and you would need a piece of fabric equal to the circumference of the boat section plus 5 inches and the length of the bag plus 5 inches.

So, if the circumference is 48 inches ( measured with a tape measure.) then you need to cut ( or have cut) the canvas for your bag to be 53 inches wide. That gves you a bit over inch of fabric for the seam ( typically it takes 1.25 inches or 30mm for 5/8th inch or 15mm seam allowance of each end of the fabric)
the extra few inches mak it easy to slide the boat into the bag. You can either buy 60 inch canvas and have it cut down, or you can piece together two 27 inch pieces cut from nominal 36 inch material, or some other combination) The length of this piece would be 83 inches. (length of boat section plus width plus 5 inches). The extra length here is for the seam allowance at the bottom and for the drawcord pocket.

The bags will be slightly oversized, but if they get wet they will shrink. washing them when they get dirty will certainly shrink them!

Hope this helps.

PGJ