Final Sanding & Staining - Petrel Kayak Build - E8

so I built the boat in this series in the
winter of 2019 as I record this intro
right now it is the middle of March of
2020 and we're in the midst of the
corona virus
my wife just put her hand on my forehead
to see if I had a fever I hope
everybody's safe in good health washing
their hands maybe doing a little social
distancing hanging out in their shop and
boatbuilding I thought you guys might
appreciate a break from all the bad news
on the television in the newspaper and
watch a little bit about building for
now and so in this episode I'm going to
be working on finishing up the sanding
and getting some stain on the boat so
we'll be doing a little bit of masking
to have different colored stains and to
keep the accents showing up nice and
bright and I'll start off with filling
some of the gaps that inevitably show up
in any bill they do so let's get right
to it
I have a few small cracks where I didn't
have good tight joints between the
strips so I'm going to fill some of
those up with a little bit of sawdust
mixture so I've got my cyclone here
which collects the dust as I sand and I
dumped it out before I got started it's
some clean stuff so that cedar sawdust I
found that even though this is the wood
that came off the boat it ends up being
darker when you mix it up like this just
because of the fine powder just absorbs
material resin and so forth more so I'm
going to add a little bit of cab Asil
I'm gonna add some water to it
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glue to ask act as a size and sort of
fine binds it all together there I have
a putty which I can spread into the
cracks seal them up
part of what sealing up the cracks does
isn't just visual it's to keep the epoxy
from just running straight through
leaving sort of a bubble there so this
will help fill those up so here I have a
little crack I'd like to fill up it's
pretty thin I could just epoxy right
over this and you know frankly you've
probably never even noticed it but here
I might as well see if I can fill that
up a little bit I'm going to take and
put masking tape on either side of it
that way I don't end up getting a halo
of glue sealing up the grain in the wood
around the issue
and I'm just putting the material right
where I need it and take the putty knife
take some of the putty off let it dry
I'll be coming back and sanding this and
it'll knock the top off of that
I'll give the whole boat of the final
overall sanding with 120 on the
longboard it gets rid of scratches from
the last 120 sanding deals with some of
these places where I put a little putty
in the cracks and also last thing I did
before that was when everything down
raised the grain so this will flatten
that raised
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so I've done the major overall sanding
now I want to hit some details always
difficult get the very edge here at the
shear line stand it all the way out
because it's flexible there so you push
on it it just flexes away and tends to
get shortchanged in the amount of
sanding it gets so I'm going to sit down
and there's a small city block and take
care of that some places on the deck
where around the recess it needs a
little bit of detail and I'm just gonna
affect it as I go see if I see anything
and I can deal with it as I go
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so now I've got the Deccan Hall all
sanded out ready for the next step which
in this case is going to be staining I
could go directly to fiberglassing now
if I weren't gonna stain
so each pass I did took like half an
hour to do the whole boat so the first
60 grit over the whole thing about half
an hour then I did sixty grit on the
longboard another half hour and then 80
grit with the random orbital and then 80
grit with the longboard and then 120
grit with the random orbital and 120 was
the longboard then a little bit of
detail sanding so there were three hours
of sanding to get it to this point which
is quite a bit of time spent sanding but
it goes pretty quickly the thing to
remember to make sanding as easy as
possible is be intentional in what
you're doing so know what you're
intending to do so the first pass is to
level things out and fair it out so we
want that to go as quickly as possible
it's about removing material so we want
to move material as quickly as possible
so for that purpose we go with really
coarse grit and a really powerful sander
and so we're just removing material
we're trying to make it level so we're
not trying to erase mistakes we're
trying to lower high spots so you don't
go around say oh there's a spot that
looks like it needs work and try and dig
into that spot that's going to make a
low spot if you see a place where there
seems to be an issue where it's uneven
feel for the high spots and knock down
the high spots again we're being
intentional in what we're doing also to
save time be systematic in what you're
doing so don't just sort of pop here and
there oh I see something over there you
see something over here work from one
end of the boat to the other then back
up the other way work on it
systematically so you're not
going over the same spot lots of times
this was pretty easy to fare out the
strips were laying down fair they were
fitting tight they were even the Cova
bead helped make the strips nice and
even I save time my sanding by making
sure I had the strip's fair and smooth I
put them in place every step of the way
we're trying to make things fair and
smooth and that way when it comes time
to do a real hard work of tearing it out
you don't need to do a lot of work so
once we get it all fair and smooth and
leveled we are done trying to get rid of
problems we there might be a few here
and there that we missed but if you feel
when you get to the next grit that oh
here's an issue I've got to work on this
you were better off doing that with the
coarse grain and when it goes faster
trying to fix problems with the finer
grain just as slow we want to use the
most aggressive fastest tool we can to
get the job done and so it's done
quickly I know people are scared to use
coarse grain sandpaper but it takes a
lot of work to sand all the way through
the boat and you're most likely to do
that if you're trying to spot fix things
the whole intention of the 80 grit
sandpaper is only to get rid of the
scratches from the 60 grit sandpaper and
then once we're done with the AIDA we go
to 120 and the reason for using 120 is
to get rid of the scratches from the 80
grit sandpaper if you're finding swirls
leftover from the 60 grit you probably
didn't do enough with the 80 grit so as
you go with the 80 grit inspect the
surface look for scratches in it that
are the swirls from the 60 grit you'll
be able to tell the difference sand them
away so do your process systematically
as you go trying to get rid of the
scratches the whole way it doesn't take
a lot you just need to be intentional in
what you're doing knowing what you're
trying to accomplish and concentrating
on a comp
sing that task and then move on to the
next task so there is a lot of sanding
strip build boats it's a given and the
goal is to make the sanding is easy and
quick as possible and when you're doing
it right it's a really satisfying
project you're seeing changes you see
how you're improving the boat with every
step of the process if you're not seeing
it make any difference think about what
you're doing are you doing something
that's worthwhile if it doesn't look
like it's making a difference do
something else if you see something that
needs to be fixed and what you're doing
isn't fixing it think about what you
need to do to fix it so be intentional
in everything you do and it'll go
quickly and it'll be fun and you'll have
a beautiful boat I put some accent
strips some contrasting Alaskan yellow
cedar in lung feature line if I have
this trying basically accent strip I
like to put in highlight hide that
accent strip I want to do that put a lot
of effort into putting that strip in
there
what I've often done is just going to
hit gone ahead and stained everything
then come back it ends up popping again
so you can see the nice accent what I
did today this time we want to go ahead
and get stained today if we put epoxy on
here I need to wait 12 hours for that to
dry have that accent showing pretty
crisply so I'm gonna put masking tape on
either side of the accent blue tape here
instead of the green tape I often use
because the blue tape does not stick as
well I want it to stick but I don't want
it to like peel grain I don't want to
create a rough spot by putting a really
aggressive sticking tape on here and
peeling up grain as I peel it off and
then having a place where the stain
reacts differently due to the texture of
the wood science experiment then I'm
going to try and put a bead of CA glue
right down on top of that looks like it
may worked alright
I got a chance to set up take a look at
it the few places where strings of glue
pulled off as I peel the tape I might be
able to sand those out that looks like
there's a nice bead right on top of that
accent there's a little bit of bleed off
into the cedar but there's going to be
good contrast there anyways I think
that'll work out fine
I have an accent strip on the hall also
again this accent highlights repeat the
line drying back here and I had the same
problem we're gonna be staining on both
sides and so I don't want stain on the
accent stripe but I have a slightly
different solution for this one my
intention is to have a two-tone here so
the bottom of the boat will be stained
as well the side of the boat but I'm
going to use a lighter stain on the
bottom than I am gonna do on the side so
to accomplish that I'm going to mask off
with masking tape at the accent stripe I
know if I'm sort of a messy workers so
I'm gonna take some of this masking film
and put that along and I'll put that
below the accent stripe and I'll use
regular masking tape to get just above
the accent stripe the the goal is to
have the masking tape and the edge of
the masking tape above the line wrapping
down below so it's covering the line I'm
gonna leave a little bit of the natural
wood showing above the accent stripe and
the accent stripes going to have a
little bit of act of natural wood color
on either side just a skosh I
specifically chose a high contrast wood
on either side of the accent stripe here
so if I don't get color all the way to
the accent strike it'll still look right
because there'll be a nice sharp
contrast there again the goal is to come
by with the masking film so I don't
spill any stain down the side of the
boat and I'm going to do the bottom
first which is the lighter colors so if
I do end up getting stained on the side
of the boat it'll be a lighter color and
any in the darker stain should hide it
but again I'm going to try and mask it
off and protect it with this masking
I'm gonna use this light red mahogany
stain on the bottom and I'll use a
darker blood-red on the sides on the top
we've got a clean rag I'm gonna put the
stain on the rag fairly heavy and wet
wipe down the whole boat and then come
back with denatured alcohol and wipe
down the boat again this is an
alcohol-based stain so it dries really
quickly as such a tends to blotch so by
coming back with a wet alcohol rag I can
even out the color
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I'll let that dry and then to the side
now with the bottom stain dry I'll mask
off the accent strip on the other side
and then to the side of the boat
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I'm using a blood red for the side and
the deck so it should be some contrast
between the side and the bottom but you
know still reddish
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well it's good I will let that dry and
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we'll get some fiberglass on the boat so
you may know that I make my living
primarily through the sale of plans to
build your own small boats such as this
kayak and other boats I have so if your
boss told you to stay home and do some
social distancing and quarantine in
place and you've been looking to build a
boat
now maybe is your chance unfortunately
it looks like we may have a lot of time
when we've got to stay away from people
and maybe it's a good time to just be in
your shop and hang out and work on an
interesting project so if that projects
building boat I have plans available
come by my website check it out see what
I've what I've got otherwise whatever
you have just a nice time to be in the
shop and keep away from people but
seriously and more importantly it's the
time to stay safe and keep your same
family safe and do what you need to do
wash your hands buy more toilet paper or
whatever you need to do so until the
next episode stay safe thanks for
watching and happy paddling