Archive for May, 2008

It sort of looks like a satellite photo of a strange planet or a bit of avant garde art.  What it is though is my first shot at fiberglass repair and it’s going better than I could have hoped.  The first thing I did was to again scope out the areas I needed to patch.  There were some areas wearing out under the seat.  Too many miles! Then of course the big bit under the left combing from the surfing accident.  The glass actually looks ok, but I don’t trust it.  I also wanted to shore up the other side as well.  I’m often climbing around on the boat and it puts a lot of stress on some areas of the boat.

Once I picked out the repairs areas and cleaned them up, I cut the glass mat for each repair.  I chose the mat over the woven variety since it’s supposed to be a bit stronger. Yes, you should wear a mask when you mess with this stuff. . .

The first time round I mixed a full cup of the goo.  It was way too much.  I got about halfway through the project before it started to gel on me.  (the tin says you get 12 minutes for each batch) I also mixed in a bit of the black color I had for the gelcoat.  I had no idea if this would work, but it seems to have done nicely.

Laying down the patches on the bottom was quick and simple.  The bits under the combing took a bit more focus but the glass is sufficently sticky that you can put it up under there and then with the brush, work the mat until it adheres.  The second time around I was smart enough to make only half a cup.

I can’t say enough how great it is to be able to just slip the seat right out.  A great Rockpool feature!! In the end it took about an hour to get the glass work done.  Then I put it out in the lawn to dry.

Here is the bit under the most damaged area.  Once this section has about 24 hours to dry It will be time to pull off the old duct tape and begin work on the outside gel coat.  Which takes me to the bit I was most happy with today.  When I was in Puerto Rico I didn’t have anything with me to protect the deck from the spare paddle.  If you look right at the bottom of the picture below you can see the massive scratching that occurred.  Up until now I had given up on repairing it since this was the glittered gel coat and I didn’t think there was a way to clean it up.

Notice the white stripes under below the hatch cover.  Yeah it was bad!  Well, now that I’ve spent a couple days at this I got a bit braver.  I knew that over the glitter was a thin layer of clear gel.  My guess was that  most of the scratching was in this top layer.  Well, I got out the 200 grit sandpaper!!!  So keeping the area wet, I slowly worked my way through finer and finer grit, 400, then 800, then 1000, then by hand I worked over the areas with automotive scratch remover.  Lastly I got out the buffer.

I have to say, I was shocked!!  It came out almost. . . almost like new!  That leaves me with the last two repairs, both on the deck, and both in the glitter.  A small one in the tail which I’ve started, and the big nasty  one near the combing.

Thomas Boyd the Younger of PenKil was granted a charter by King Charles II to form the village of Girvan into the burgh of Baroney on May 6, 1668. Girvan is also where Rowland Woollven & Cath Tanner are hiding out at the moment. . . well, according to the map anyway! King Charles II by the way, was not a kayaker as far as we know however he may have been reincarnated as a rock guitarist for the 70’s supergroup, “Queen”.

o fix it dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
So fix it dear Henry, dear Henry, fix it.

I have to admit it. I was terrorized at the thought of doing all the repairs on my Rockpool Alaw Bach. I had taken my first tentative steps into gelcoat repairs last year and had good success, but that was on a white hull. The idea of working with black and sparkles seemed way out of my league.

I decided to start simply enough and work on the hull. We’ve all heard before that black gelcoat really shows the scratches and that’s very true. It does not take long for the glossy black coat to become a mixture of black gloss, white stripes and dull gray. It’s hard to imagine how you can repair the deep gouges and spider cracks without just adding to the mess. Well, I’m happy to tell you now it goes much better than I would have imagined. It comes down to expectations and the right tools.

The expectations part is easy. Well, once you get over it. Old beat kayaks are signs of experience. Respectable. You will never, and don’t really want to make them look like new again. With time and effort you may be able to make a repair invisible, but life is short. With a lot less time you can make the repair solid and ALMOST invisible. That works for me. If you accept that perfection has scars this whole process goes much better.

Repairing Gelcoat is not a difficult thing. It does take a bit of time, but not all that much and you certainly don’t have to be a fan of “This Old House” to do a good job. At the bottom of the post I’ll give you some good links to walk you through. As you know by now I’m much more into the experience than the brass tacks. . . Basically you just clean out the damage, fill it with new gelcoat, sand and buff. By cleaning out the damage I mean actually chipping out the loose or weak gel, then sanding down the edges so the gel has something to stick to. I found that my trusty Dremel was perfect for creating nice clean repairs. Obviously you have to be careful not to damage the fiberglass underneath.

First thing I did was remove most of the stickers and lettering from the boat. Sorry Mike, but they were in pretty sad shape anyway and were just going to get in the way. (Dear, Rockpool please send new stickers. . . .) Then I took a pretty detailed survey of the hull damage. There were actually more places that needed repair than I had thought! I didn’t bother with slight spider cracks and scratches, just real damage. I marked them all off went about preparing them all in one go.

Now I know I’d give real craftsman a heart attack. I’m not too fussy and a tad impatient. It’s a good idea to put masking tape around all the repairs. However, my hull is trashed and I’ve learned that in the end it will all clean up quite well. So I skipped the tape. . Now, It’s a good plan to wear gloves and use a mask. It get’s smelly and the fumes are not healthy.

First I removed any of the loose stuff, then I took the Dremel and routed them out until I had a nice clean area to fill. Once that was done I cleaned them all out with Acetone.

The next step was simply mixing up the new Gel. To deal with the hull I used a clear polyester gel-paste which just seems easier to work with than the runny stuff. I wanted to mix up a batch to cover all the repairs with a consistent color. I started with 4 teaspoons which goes a long way and was more than enough for the hull. You have to experiment with the amount of coloring agent to add, but black is pretty simple and I had my mix in just a couple minutes.

Once I had my black gel coat I would take just one teaspoon at a time and mix with the hardener. Regardless of all the advice out there you sort of have to guess at the amount of hardener to add. In my case about 6-8 drops per teaspoon seemed to give me enough working time. In fact after I mixed it, I still held off on the repairs just a bit to let the gelcoat thicken just a bit more. You have to be careful here. If it’s too thick you can’t work with it, but if it’s runny you’ll have a mess on your hands. . (and everywhere else).

(new “patch” hardening off before it’s sanded down)

Well, now comes the fun part. To fill the damaged area I used a combination of “tools”. An old spatula, a straw with a funny spoon-like end, and a bit of a plastic bubble pack for a straight edge. The guys who are good at this suggest plastic spreaders and popsicle sticks. If the “hole” is really deep you may want to do the repair in layers. Otherwise it will take a long time to harden. They other problem is that you can get little air bubbles that seem to never want to work out, or that will hide only to rise to the surface later and leave new holes for you to fill when the repair dries. The biggest mistake here is to not use enough gelcoat. As it drys it tends to shrink. So if you try to get a perfectly smooth repair here you will most likely end up with a depression (both in the hull and psychologically). You are better off just glopping it on and sanding down the excess later. I loved the pictures from Point 65. He went crazy with the gelcoat and it still comes out beautifully!

Once all the repairs were done I just walk away and clean up my mess. The can said it takes about an hour to dry. In my case the repairs will still tacky after more than 2 hours however It’s a bit cool and humid around here. Regardless you want to wait for the repairs to harden before working with them. Eventually the repairs did harden off. Once they did I got out 400, 600, 800, & 1000 grit wet/dry sand paper and began the work of smoothing them out. I began with the bow section of my 3-piece kayak.

I used a bit of mini-cell for a sanding block since it’s flexible and works well on the curved shape of a boat. I’d start off with 400 or 600 grit sandpaper, then work progressively toward the 1000 grit, keeping the area wet all the time with a sponge and a bucket. Each progression smoothes out the last. Now, if you sit back and let the water evaporate you WILL have a heart attack!! Yeah, the repair may be smooth but you’ve also taken all the gloss off the boat. It looks like you killed it!! That’s one reason the big boys suggest masking tape. But like I said, this is the hull and I was prepared for this ugly eventuality.

Now comes the bit where all your terror pays off. I invested in a rotary buffer which like my Dremel, makes me glad I bought it each time I sit down to do this stuff. (For what it’s worth a “buffer” is a bit more aggressive than a “polisher”) First I went over the repairs (and must of the hull as well) with a light buffing compound. I spent a good amount of time on this actually. Once that was done, I changed pads and finished up with that nice fuzzy polishing pad. My black glossy hull had returned!!!

Of course the repaired bow section does not look perfect. Not up close. But from a couple feet away you’d never know I’d repaired it. Now with a bit more time and effort I’m fairly sure I could make the repairs invisible. Thing is, in a day or two I’m going to scratch the hell out of it all over again. So when you repair your kayak you have to look at your priorities and measure perfection.

Today I move on to the hard part, the glittery deck. I began a test area already. Where a chuck was taken out near the tail which is black with glitter, I followed the same process except I intentionally put only a small amount of black gelcoat to act as a background. Then sprinkled it with glitter. This morning it dried and shrunk down into the repair area. The next step is to complete the repair with a layer of clear gelcoat over the top. I’ll let you know how that goes.

From there I move on to the big problem area and will take on my first shot at fibreglassing. Now THAT sounds fun!!

More On Gelcoat Repair

• http://www.roguepaddler.com/gelcoat.htm
• Bryan Day’s Sea Kayaker Magazine article

It’s a weird sickly feeling in the pit of my stomach. That moment when my brain suddenly starts seeing something utterly nuts and scary as something real and possible. It’s that moment when you stand on the edge of a dark precipice and the little voice in your head says, “go ahead, step off”. Thanks to my relative grasp on sanity I don’t usually step off. On the other hand, the guy in the red pajamas on my other shoulder says, “What’s the matter? Afraid?”. . .

It was sort of like that as I gazed out the window of the Lake Express ferry watching the 3-5 foot seas roll by and disappear into the fog somewhere in the middle of the 80 mile crossing. Without concious intention I was drifting and doing math. . . “Let’s See,” I thought to myself, “ 80 miles divided by 4 is 20. So at 4mph it would take about 20 hours to cross the lake by kayak.” I continued, “But there is no way I could hold that speed over 20 hours, so let’s say 3 mph just to be safe. Well in that case it would be somewhere around 27 hours. 27 hours!?? No way, I’d have to keep closer to 4 than 3. Would you sleep on the water or paddle straight through? I’d think I’d just try to paddle through. Hmmm, how would I prepare for that? Maybe I could see what a doctor would have to say. There must be a way to train for extended hours on the water. . .” Suddenly I surfaced from my lost thoughts and again saw the waves disappearing into the dense fog and with a sudden shock I thought, “What the HELL am I thinking!!!!!!”. Forget that! . .  . but still. . . and that’s where the precipice opens beneath your feet.

Back in the real world I ran to Madison last night to grab the very last can of clear gelcoat that the marine store was holding for me. So today I’m going to finally get at some of the repairs to my poor beat Rockpool! Now you could say that I’ve been putting them off out of fear and you’d be right. . On the practical side it is hard to find clear gelcoat.

This Saturday I’m teaching down at Rutabaga and will get a chance to try out Shawna and Leon’s new bracing techniques. Then the following weekend it’s off to Chicago for the symposium there. In Chicago it’s my turn to stand and point to little maps with my paddle as I talk about last year’s “Chasing the Ana” trip. Should be fun!

Shawna Franklin

A symposium is of course a torrential rain of experiences compressed into a bottle of a couple of days. When you arrive back at your home base and the gear is out drying in the sun, when you finally start to decompress, it can be hard to figure out how to begin without overlooking something. I’m quite sure it will take the next few days to talk share it with you.

One thing that the WMCKA symposium does like no other is recognize that more than just hardcore paddlers, the attendees and coaches are also people, often middle aged, and often with children. With that in mind they do an amazing job of spacing out classes in such a way that both coaches and students get adequate time to rest, prepare, eat, talk about and practice what they learn in each class. It’s often overlooked that this “break time” is the time where the knowledge is allowed to soak in. In addition their children’s program not only offers plenty of time on the water for the kids, but off-water as well. The flipside benefit to the parents cannot be overstated. They can come to the symposium, spend time with their families, and take all the classes they wish as well as attend social events knowing that their children are having a great time in supervised atmosphere all the while. It seems to me that a good children’s program should really be an important feature of all sea kayaking symposiums.

So while the kids were at the climbing wall or playing in their boats the rest of us took in classes from beginner to advanced. We learned strokes, rescues, braces, rolls and so much more. Kayak Uber coaches, Shawna Franklin and Leon Sommé of Body, Boat, Blade, gave freely of their time with students and coaches alike sharing all that amazing stuff they work out on Orcas Island with the rest of us. More on that later. However, I do want to credit these guys for their dedication to helping others with this little story;

Leon Sommé

As they often do, Shawna and Leon had some new tools for coaches to work with. With that in mind a pre-symposium class was worked out for instructors at a very small fee. Of course only some instructors were able to attend and the following day everyone was asking and talking about a couple new techniques they had taught. As each person would ask it seemed they were always willing to get back out on the water and repeat it for individual instructors. Each time they would start working with another coach, others would zoom out to join in. It became obvious that there were a lot of other coaches wanting to learn what new tricks they had up their sleeves. So they were asked to do another coaches workshop between classes. Even with that second class there were still many questions and little on water sessions with individuals and groups fit into every spare moment. Shawna and Leon would dive into each session with the same joy and dedication as the first to the benefit of anyone wanting to learn. It was really something to watch.

Beyond the new techniques they shared over the weekend they also taught something maybe a bit more subtle; dedication. For coaches symposiums can be hectic. We can get caught up on a bit of a race track running from assignment to assignment with seemingly little time between. We can be tempted to put off students needing a little extra help or looking for something “off program”. After all, sometimes we’re already deciding between lunch and changing into dryer clothes! What I learned from them over the weekend was to remember to pause, hit the reset button and give the time I have when asked. With the joy of watching others learn, who needs food anyway!?

- More to come. . .