Still Smoothing the Deck

Still Smoothing the Deck

Well, after a day and a half of sanding and scraping, I decided that a fairing board would have to be used to smooth down all of the strips to the same height; ie smoothness. A fairing board is a long piece of thin plywood 3 to 4 inches wide that is flexible enough to bend around the different curves on the boat. I couldn't find one locally and didn't want to wait a week to order one online, so made my own. Went down to local Home Depot and purchased a 2' by 2' piece of 1/4" plywood for 2.98, bought 4 big wooden drawer handles, and several sanding belts meant for use by a hand held belt sander that where 21" in a continuous loop. Got home and cut 2 lengths at 21" from the piece of plywood, one across the grain and the other with the grain. The long grain board would give me a stiff sanding board for flatter areas such as the rear of the kayak and the other with the cross grain would be a lot more flexible to follow the curves on the front of the boat. Affixed one drawer handle to each end of each board, lined the undersides of each by spraying adhesive on board and some cork salvaged from an old stick pin type bulletin board. This would give just a little cushion. Took the sanding belts and cut them open to create a long piece 21" in length and again used spray on adhesive to attach to the bottom of each cork lined board. Then went to town and made tremendous progress. Before I got to far, I took some wood filler and filled in some of the more obvious open cracks where some of the strips did not quite meet each other at the ends where they meet and also along the strips in the middle where the bead and coves didn't fit perfectly. I will then go back over the whole thing with the fairing boards hopefully knock down the extra wood filler leaving only the cracks filled. Hope I didn't get to carried away with the filler!