Our next step will be filleting and taping the inside seams. I will first do the fore and aft cavities since they will not show, and then the cockpits. The fillet material will be epoxy thickened with wood flour. Since I don’t know how much I’ll need, I’ll start with just a few ounces. I only have 30 minutes to work each time I mix epoxy. I’m supposed to also cover my fillets with fiberglass tape and epoxy while the the fillets are still soft, so you can see how tricky this will be. Once the filleting and taping is complete, I’ll epoxy the entire interior. By the way, Stitch-and-Glue Boatbuilding by Chris Kulczycki is my main guidebook for this project.
There are several tasks I can do in the 3 days I must wait for the fillets to cure. One is to construct the boot assembly. I believe Crocs will be perfect. I plan to attach them to pieces of plywood that can easily be swapped out to accommodate skiers with different size feet. I’m hoping I do not need to sew the shoes to the plywood. I’ll test glue the removed Croc strap to see how well it holds while I’m filleting and taping. Oh, and don’t forget I need to glue my glasses frames that I stepped on while I was scraping snow off of our car yesterday.
Another task that can be done in the next few days will be construction of the FootPaddle® supports and the paddles themselves. Read more about this in a future blog post.