Erik Sprenne wrote: > If you choose to remove the plastic bulkhead, you MUST be much more careful > about doing a *good* fiberglassing job, which may be difficult given the > location of the bulkhead, and the need for you to worm your upper body into > the kayak in a very awkward position - while holding all your fiberglassing > supplies. Actually, it isn't that difficult to get in there. The forward hatch allows some work to be done from that position. To get in through the cockpit, I suspended my kayak above the ground, cockpit facing down. I could stand up inside the cockpit and reach in to the bulkhead position. I used a vacuum cleaner to suck out the air and lots of lights on the outside of the hull for illumination (it's pretty translucent with white gel coat). It was suspended over a stairwell, so I had a couple of stair positions to choose from depending on what I was doing. A high step let me reach well into the kayak, while the lower one let me work standing straighter. I also was able to stand the kayak on its stern in the stairwell. This allowed me to get in through the forward hatch with the bulkhead horizontal. I installed the bulkhead from the cockpit side, with a broad strip of fiberglass as a fillet, then stood the kayak on end to do the hatch side. I filled in the gap between the bulkhead and hull/deck with thickened epoxy and didn't need to worry about it running. Another wide band of fiberglass finished it. Putting the kayak in a horizontal, inverted position also made installing the shelf a piece of cake. I haven't had any problems with deformation on the hull/deck, nor water leaking. The wood looks dry by inspection through the fiberglass. Mike *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Jan 19 2000 - 18:55:49 PST
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