JEM Watercraft

Mate,

I do an end fillet.

I mix the wood flour as thick as I can so that it won't sag and wipe it into the bow with my finger tip.

I smooth it off with a spoon and try to clean up all woodflour that is not in the fillet itself BEFORE it sets. - works for me and is much lighter than a full endpour.

I do a combination pour I do a fillet like mick does then cut a piece of cardboard tape it in and make the top four inches thicker . My handle and the longest point on he boat are well braced that way but is still lighter than a full end pour
Ron

Jeremy,

An end pour does a couple of things for you. One is, add strength to the ends. the fillet described on here will do that too.

The other thing an end pour does is provide a place to drill all the way through the stem end to put through a rope.

Put in your cardboard dam, mix up epoxy with wood flour tot he consistency of peanut butter, go along the joints and bottom of the dam. From then on, you can pour in dribbles and drabbles of epoxy left over from other jobs and just accumulate it until you have enough.

I prefer the hole for a rope to be down near the waterline of a fully loaded boat. then, if I have to line a boat through rapids it is better prepared.

I do the same as Kayak Jack , End pour both ends and then drill a hole threw them for the rope ( make sure to coat the hole with epoxy to seal it and the wood) , this way I know it will hold either tied off to the bumpers on the vehicle or to a tree on the side of the river overnight.

Chuck.

This is about where the end pour ended up...


I was planning on drilling the hole just above the panel joint through the top panel, but am wondering if it should be lower???



Then, on to fiberglassing... Laid out the cloth dry--to smooth out and lie overnight... feeling a bit apprehensive...


I followed the plans and ordered the 50" cloth, but it comes up a little short in the middle of the boat...


Will this need to be reinforced??? or is it high enough up not to matter?

Here's a shot after initial wet out (boat is upside down in pic for applying fiberglass--this is a close up of the top panel, with bare area for gunwhale)


There's only a couple of inches between the edge of the fiberglass and the edge of where the gunwhale will go. Is it necessary to add a patch there?

Best ask Matt. He's more expert on that kinda thing than the rest of us.

That small area will be just fine.

I debated about specifying wider cloth to cover that area but it's such a small patch that it's not needed. Wider cloth would have cover that area but much more would have been wasted.

If you want, you can add a small patch to that area.

Matt,

You're right there would've been a lot left over. As it was, I was able to trim some excess from the ends before wetting out, so I've got the patch and should be easy to apply. Just wasn't sure, being my first time...

jt wrote:Matt,

You're right there would've been a lot left over. As it was, I was able to trim some excess from the ends before wetting out, so I've got the patch and should be easy to apply. Just wasn't sure, being my first time...

No problem. Typically when applying a patch, you want to overlap the cloth. But in this case, an edge-to-edge fit is fine and will be easier to fill in the weave of the fiberglass.

For glassing the insides, I did it in sections. This accomplished two things:

1. It was probably easier to do it in thirds rather than all at once, and

2. I was able to lay the cloth across the canoe, so I didn't come up short like I did when running it lengthwise. In the pic, the middle section has already been wetted once and cured.


I also did a patch over both the end pours.



I'm not terribly worried about the appearance of the inside ends, as they will be behind a bulkhead...