Shiver.... It is still freezing here i Norway. The feeling of a
brand new canoe on silent dark water is far away yet, and one can loose faith for lesser things.
But beyond is the spring waiting, and we are still optimistic. We planned to lay the fibrecloth
and epoxy this weekend, but must delay that for a while. It shall get even colder, and when it is
10 degrees celsius belov 0 now, it will be impossible to raise the temperature in the workshop
enough to start the setting of the epoxy. We need to raise the temperature with about 25 degrees
and that will be very hard to do. Two of the builders, who can afford such luxary, will be off to
Fuerteventura, in the Canaries in two weeks time, so things will slow down a bit now. At least all the
sanding is done now.
Next time we will try to make seats, paddles and decks,
and that will be a challenge also. The last thing we did this evening was to go inside for a cup of
tea, and to plan what to do next. We also tried to isolate tha workshop a bit, to liminate the area that
needs heating. It worked well, eh.. we hope so anyway.
13.02.01
And another stem mounted.
07.02.01 Outer stem mounted! 01.02.01 Sanding Planing and sanding was the scedule of the evening.
The gaps between the planking that occured when applying heat to the hull was almost gone
now, luckily. It is obvious tha we cannot use a heating fan to rise the temperature in the workshop.
This metod dries out the wood far too much. Planing was strightforward work. The only thing we had to watch
out forwas to keep the plane razor sharp all the time. We sadly found a piece of a staplethat was
not removed from the hull,and it took some time to set up the plane blade again. The fitting of
the outer stems are almostdone also. It is freezing outside, and the temperature inside are not
very high eighter, but we are dressed to go to the North Pole so we survive. 23.01.01 EPOXY! Epoxy is the magic word now. We made a tent above the hull
and filled all the small gaps between the strips with thickened epoxy. Then we put a fan heater
inside the tent, and went inside the house to laminate the outer stems. We applyed
a good amount of epoxy, and cramped the stems to moulds we made. Then it is just to let time
and temperature do the job curing the epoxy. Next time we will start to adapt the stems to the hull. 
The stem in the other end of the canoe (Erh... which end is the other
end in a canoe?... never mind) are in place now. We waxed the screws here also. The hull is complete now,
just planing and sanding left and then we will go on with epoxy and fibreglass cloth.
We have decided to use epoxy fram SP systems, 106 resin. It is lightly yellow in colour, but we
like to believe that the reslut will be pleasing never the less. SP also manufactures an all clear
resin, and we might use that one on the next project.
Well, on one end anyway. And we have sanded the hull so there is
sawdust any thinkable places. (And a few unthinkable..) 80 grit paper on a random orbital sander
did the work well, and it both looks and feels good. We have not done more than half the hull so
far, but the job went smoothly, and with less effort than we feared. The outer laminated stem
made of birch was mountedin a bed of thickended epoxy, of fastened with waxed screws. We thickened the
epoxy with microballons and sawdust.
Gloves are essential when working with epoxy!!! We mounted
an infrawaveheater to get the right curing temperature,and there it was.
