Frej XS

[BigandSmall]

I squared up the seat foam and shaped it to the hull. I trimmed it with a saw after tracing form 7 on both ends and sanded it to fit with 60 grit. That dust collector was great again. Today I flipped the hull over and epoxied the stems on. My plan to just use a little electrical tape to wrap them on didn't go so well but I'll share the results anyway. Canadian Tire sells electrical tape in 6 packs though so I now have 3 left. I used epoxy thickened with graphite powder where the stems join the hull and clear epoxy painted both sides on the rest. Once I started I was committed. Since I didn't do a great job fitting the laminations I had to use extra force/wraps to get them to conform tightly. Hopefully they turn out.

Any suggestions for a time frame before taking the tape off and planing them to rough shape?

 

[red kite]

Any suggestions for a time frame before taking the tape off and planing them to rough shape?

What resin and hardener? Temperature in your shop?
With West 105/205 at 18*C or so I'm usually going for 72 or so hours for this kind of stuff. If in the low 10's I'd leave it for a week to allow for a good cure.

 

[BigandSmall]

Thank you Red Kite, 105/207. I had it up to 20'ish for the work but it will be around 10-15 overnight so I'll work on other things and give it a little time.

I had some daylight left and it's pretty mild out so I roughed out the seat. This is a piece I probably should have purchased. I ordered a seat from Redfish kayaks pre-carved and shaped to the hull for my daughter's Arctic Tern and it's great according to her. I thought my wife might be too small for the size small they offer but she found the size medium in that boat comfortable. Joe had mentioned small would likely have been fine and I should have listened. Anyway I started with a 14.5" width and used a utility knife at the front and then sanded down with a worn out flapper disc. I need to go buy a surform tool or think of something else to use as the work gets finer. The grinder is a bit jumpy.

 

[red kite]

Thank you Red Kite, 105/207. I had it up to 20'ish for the work but it will be around 10-15 overnight so I'll work on other things and give it a little time.

207 likes it warmer than 205... So, keeping it around 16*C (or above) during the first night is highly recommended.

 

[BigandSmall]

Finished up the seat today. Gouged it out with a citrus zester and then used emery cloth to finish to the final shape. Started with 60 then 100 and 180 to finish. At the end I went over it with a plumber's torch. I lingered a little too long with the torch in a couple of spots leaving a couple of dark spots unfortunately. I'll wait until my wife spends some time in the seat though before I sand it any further. I managed to get down to 1cm in the thin spots. It's a perfect fit, hopefully it will be long distance comfortable.

 

[BigandSmall]

After reading Red Kite's suggestion I put a space in the garage to help keep the heat up. Planed and sanded the stems today. I was a little aggressive planing but they'll do. I was debating filling in the gaps and touching up the whole hull but I think I'll wait and come back to it later on.

 

[BigandSmall]

I lined up and mounted all the forms in the hull. This took a lot longer than I expected to get right. I mounted some 1x2 to aid in the alignment and used some ratchet straps in the mix too. The ratchet straps helped pull the sides in as well as pull the form down seating it before I pre-drilled and screwed them into place. Once I got it together and laid down a strip or two I see I need to drop form 12. It's sitting high and making a hump in the end of the rear deck. I assume I have too much in the way of glass and epoxy there raising it at least an 1/8". After getting them all screwed in tightly I had to go around backing the screws off 1/4 turn at a time until the hull looked right. With them too tight it was pinched in at the forms. Now it's time to scrape and clean up/out the top of the hull to accept a strip.

 

[BigandSmall]

Well there's been a lot of time spent on the boat with very little to show for it. I ended up having to pull forms 9 and 12 for further sanding. Lot's of time spent tryng to figure out how to do things and a mile of tape used mocking things up. I had a frustrating day where I struggled to get the thin accent strips to join cleanly with the deck accent strip at the ends. I also ruined a full length strip that day. In the end since I'm not much of a wood worker I've decided I'll just cut the ends back after it's together and cover it up and shape a walnut chunk in there. Much easier than getting gap-less joints. There was also some shimming required to fill gaps between the forms and the strips where I made mistakes.

Today was a better day and the build got fun again once I had a plan and gave up on trying to make it perfect. So the accent strips are glued at the ends and I got my first cedar strip beveled and nailed on. I tried using picture hanging nails instead of staples, the jury is still out on that one. There is an interesting twist at the cockpit on a Frej that gave me a little grief. I had to plane the strip down a little and hit it with the heat gun to make the bend. Once I get the other side starter strip in place I'm hoping the deck will come together quickly. Work and family commitments will hold things up for a few days though.

 

[JohnAbercrombie]

The deck on Frej (and similar boats from Bjorn Thomasson) isn't easy - there's a big twist in the strips at the cockpit, transitioning from the arched front deck to the low almost-flat rear deck, and there's that 'dip and hump' aft the cockpit just to add an extra challenge.
I was always happy to know that I could hide my many mistakes with a nice layer of paint.

 

[BigandSmall]

John suggested shimming the low spots when I asked about gaps and leveling. They made up for my errors in sanding/cutting etc. Deck is coming along well. Needed the heat gun a few times to make that curve. After failing at clean strip fitting I instead decided to pull the walnut center strip. Hopefully I can make a clean cut at the end when I put it back in.

 

[mick_allen]

Sorry, I haven't been paying attention, but it looks like there's an issue with form 9 being too high. Check it out: hopefully it's just an illusion.

Something looks a little odd in plan view at form 7 also [seems shifted inward], or there's a flat [in plan view] at form 8 or something - maybe everythings a little wide at form 8: use a caliper for the 6 strips at form 8 and check the same against the adjacent forms [only if it seems an issue]

 

[BigandSmall]

It's hard to say Mick, 9 could be too high. The Frej has a swoop down at the back of the cockpit starting at form 9 and dropping to the low form 8 at the back of the cockpit. Hopefully it turns out according to the plans but it could well be that I've made a mistake here. I'm guessing it would be from not marking the sheer lines well enough and then having variations in the glass/epoxy thickness raising forms. That was my issue with the other forms. It is level from 9 to the back though. If there is an issue hopefully the hatch lines and deck rigging with break it up enough that it's not glaringly obvious except to builders.
Link:

Frej XS | Björn Thomasson Design

Frej XS, 442x49 cm

www.thomassondesign.com

 

[mick_allen]

Yeah it's one of the issues with the detached strongbed approach where there's some difficulty in assuring one's self that everything is still aligned when just inserting the loose forms back in the built hull.
In your case, a recessed black hatch looks to be placed approximately there and that and it's recess will break the lines up so much that I doubt if it will be noticeable in anycase.
I haven't seen it, but I wonder if one deck approach would be to just flip the whole form and hull assembly upside down and with everything together continue to strip up toward the edges of the former [now 'down'] 'up'stands. At least that would keep alignment for 1/3 or so of the deck stripping.

And oh!, it's a cute little kayak for kids - how cool is that! what a guy! I never realized it, it'll be great.

 

[JohnAbercrombie]

Sorry, I haven't been paying attention, but it looks like there's an issue with form 9 being too high. Check it out: hopefully it's just an illusion.

I think it's just because you're not familiar with the Thomasson (Frej, Njord, Panthera) deck shapes - #9 does look like 'a bump', but isn't.
The back deck is pretty much flat from form #9 aft. #9 is the beginning of the flat section, pretty much. #7 & #8 are in the cockpit area and just behind the cockpit, #6 is the last of the high bow deck shapes.

I found that one of the tricky things was to keep the deck flat between #9 & #10....the strips want to rise up there, when they get pushed down to meet form #8

 

[BigandSmall]

Well I got the last full length strip on today. The last two I put on were thicker and a little wider the smaller ones I used up. Certainly wouldn't have wanted to strip a whole boat in the bigger stuff. Thanks to Rod for making all those nice small strips that fit so tightly.

As for form 9 being high I think it looks good now. The Frej has some interesting lines as John said, I think it throws off the perspective. I took a couple of extra pictures and threw the cockpit template in there to show where it will sit. Seeing the lines I'm really happy with that yellow cedar accent strip now.

 

[BigandSmall]

I ran out of nails so didn't finish the front yet. The back looks more normal now and is ready to get the walnut cut back in. It certainly did look odd earlier when partially stripped.

 

[mick_allen]

Yes, I don't see any problem now: I think what I originally was reacting too was an assumption that this was a longer kayak . . . or conversely a shorter kayak with wanting more forms. The ckpt dip being so close the stern [if it was longer] seemed to put that dip [and subsequent deck high point] in contradiction.
It looks great.

 

[BigandSmall]

I finished gluing in the last of the strips. I started pulling nails to layout the cut for the walnut strip. I ended up using 300 of the picture hanging nails on the deck. The few I've pulled I should be able to use on the next boat. Unfortunately the price went way up after I bought the first batch. I think they leave less damage than the staples.

 

[BigandSmall]

When laying out for the cut I marked it out for 18mm. This ended up being a mistake since the pull saw makes much cleaner cut than I expected. I had assumed cutting on the line would take me pretty close to 19 mm. After trying to file it for a bit I ended up spray gluing some 60 grit on a piece of plywood sanding the rest off. I just set the wood in there for tonight.

 

[BigandSmall]

Well the walnut is glued in and the deck is rough sanded. After rough sanding Mick's eye was good and form 9 was slightly proud. It is minor but you can see it now with everything smoothed out. I had a few heads pop off the nails but was able to pull rest with pliers without issue. I trimmed the deck ends off and laminating some walnut on there will be one of the next jobs. I had to trim them at uneven lengths due to where the yellow cedar accent strips ended. The eye would be drawn to the en-even pattern so I thought it would be less noticeable this way. I also spent some time laying out the deck design. It took a bit to space it all evenly so that the rigging and hatches looked right.

The next jobs will be to laminate/shape the ends, fill the gaps and then decide whether to cut the cockpit out before or after glassing?