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Re: Strip: How much glass should I remove
By:Malcolm Schweizer
Date: 11/2/2009, 12:19 am
In Response To: Strip: How much glass should I remove (John Faas)

Search for my recent postings about refurbishing my strip kayak that was badly damaged after a guy I lent it to ran off with it and finally it was recovered after sitting outside for years. I had the same black fungus under the 'glass, and the glass stripped off like paper, which was actually a good thing. What I did after peeling the 'glass off was to wash it down with acetone, then sand it with 60, 80, 120, 220 grits. In some parts I even used a plane to plane away some really bad spots before sanding. Then I washed it down with a mixture of bleach and water mixed about 1 part bleach to 4 parts water. More sanding, washed it again. Then I used a brush to brush on a 50/50 solution of bleach and water to the lighter pine strips to get the black stuff off. I will be posting pics shortly as I just put the first coat of epoxy on. It looks great. There are a few places that are still a bit darker but it really came out good.

One problem I did run into was that in a few places once the whole thing dried out (the kayak was water-logged when I got it back) some of the strips shrunk and left small gaps between the strips. I used West System G5 quick epoxy to fill those in, but first I coated the whole kayak with epoxy. If you don't you run the risk of having stains where the G5 soaks into the wood more than the epoxy. I sanded, sanded, sanded the G5 until everything was flush again. In hindsight I probably should have added wood flour because the gaps when filled with clear epoxy just look black. They are so small that it really doesn't matter.

I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. One thing I have yet to do is get the warp out of the hatch covers. It looks like I'm going to have to steam them because the wood actually is bent at the lip.

Messages In This Thread

Strip: How much glass should I remove
John Faas -- 11/1/2009, 11:47 pm
Re: Strip: How much glass should I remove
Malcolm Schweizer -- 11/2/2009, 1:14 pm
Re: Strip: How much glass should I remove
Etienne Muller -- 11/2/2009, 12:54 pm
Re: Strip: How much glass should I remove
Malcolm Schweizer -- 11/2/2009, 12:19 am
Re: Strip: How much glass should I remove
Bill Hamm -- 11/2/2009, 12:07 am