Replies

1. 
   joinerswork | Feb 13, 2007 10:12pm | #1

   purswell,

   Embrace the staple holes.  They'd stand out, whatever you try to do to 'em.  I've been involved with building 5 strip canoes, plus a guide boat,, over the last few years.  We figure the epoxy wicks into the holes and provides a good anchor for the fiberglass skin.

   The author of the "how-to" book we went by on the first one, Moore or Mohr, Mohler, something like that, mentioned one of his students driving glue-covered toothpicks into the staple holes and sanding them flush.  Seems like a kind of pointless (pun)  thing to do, when epoxy will fill them anyway.

   Something to keep in mind on your next one: I talked to a fellow at a show who clamped each strip to the previous one with a couple dozen of those giant clothepin type spring clamps.  By straddling the new strip with the clamps he held it in place with the jaws gripping the previous strip.  Foam padding kept the fulcrum area of the clamps from bruising the edge of the strip being glued.  No staples, except for a very few used to stitch the cheater strips in their winding position.   He worked by himself, and claimed that by the time he fitted the strip on one side, the glue had set enough on the other side that he could pull the clamps without having to wait for glue to dry.

   Regards,

   Ray Pine