I finally got my long board sander from Ebay. It looks similar the Mirka one but at a fraction of the price, so lets see how it holds up. It hooks up to my shop vac and I ordered it with some 80 grit and 120 grit long sanding sheets with pre-punched holes, it works a treat and keeps the dust down.

So my sanding schedule was:

Starting with 60 grit on my ROS to knock down the high spots, mainly where the strip edges formed ridges, followed by 80 grit with the ROS. Then 80 grit with the long board followed by 120 with the ROS and 120 with the long board. This didn't take long as the hull was pretty smooth and fair. Finally I used some 240 in the ROS to get a really smooth finish.

We finally had some dry spring weather today and I managed to get the boat out of the workshop for a good look.

With the warmer weather I decided to start the hull glassing. Although its in the low teens now, its still not really warm enough for the epoxy, so to keep it warm in storage and before use I built a plywood cabinet to keep it around 25C. It is insulated with an old foam camping mat and some foil designed to go behind wall mounted radiators. Its heated using a 20W reptile heater and an STC1000 temperature controller. A bit rough and ready but it works fine.

I'm using MAS Low Viscosity resin with a slow hardener.

As per Rob Mack's recommendations I started with a thin seal coat rolled on. I'm using the WEST yellow rollers, cut in half, and while they roll a good coating, they do have a tendency to de-laminate with the foam coming off after about half the hull is done. Expensive and disappointing! This is after the seal coat for which I mixed 160g (6oz) then (80g) 3oz of resin, though not all of it was finally used.

Next day... Glassing time!. I'm keen to keep the weight down while still having a strong kayak. I'm using a combination of e-glass and s-glass. On the outer skins I'm using 6oz E-glass twill to try and get the clearest layup. On the inside I'm going to use 4oz s-glass, which apparently has a similar strength to 6oz E-glass, but does not wet out as clearly, though it'll be interesting to see the difference.

Here's the hull with the first layup of 6oz e-glass. This first layup used about 400g (10oz) and after squeegeeing there was about 60g (2oz) waste.

Part 4 decking the hull