I think I’ll just tack between the stitches, seems way less complicated, I’m not in a race. I sure know what to do if I gob over a stitch or two! Thanks for this thread!
Ok, I'm new to this process, and this thread has left me a bit verklempt (let me catch me breath, talk amongst yourselves for a moment).
I'm building a cocktail racer, and the instructions say to leave stitches entombed in epoxy until the end of time. The stitches along the bottom came out, as they were between the welds, but the rest are radiating their anti-tennis elbow magic from inside the fillets.
Am I doing something wrong?
Perhaps the authors of the manual thought to help you maintain your boat in good humor long term...by keeping it in stitches! <;-)
Sorry for the punnery. Seriously, it's probably a case of "different ships, different long splices", you think?
On the one hand, one might worry about leaving the nipped-off stitches in to expand and contract at a different rate than the wood and epoxy in which they are embedded, perhaps getting up devilment by letting water get into the plywood and causing damage you won't notice until it's advanced? Who knows?
On the other hand, there are a lot of stitches to pull, so why not just nip 'em off flush and leave 'em? The whole business is going to get more epoxy, anyway, and the little dot where the wire got nipped off (hopefully flush) probably won't look any worse than a filled hole where the wire was pulled and filled with epoxy, so does it matter?
On the third hand...oh, wait, we're out of hands...Evolution has not yet provided humankind with what I personally think would be a most useful physiological improvement: a third arm with a third hand, possibly double-jointed so it could grip left or right handed! Seriously, how many times have you been in a situation where a well behaved third hand with decent reach might have seemed a life saver? So, why haven't we evolved one by now? I mean, it would give your shirt maker fits, no doubt, but maybe a three armed shirt maker might not think it much trouble, seein' as he's got three hands to work with his own self. But, I digress....
Anyway, you see my point. We can make ourselves crazy puzzling over such details, worrying that we'll make some irresoluble mistake, when the truth is that it's epoxy and plywood and, short of gluing the thing up so it's noticeably crooked, there really isn't much that can't be passably rectified by a patient amateur or even a complete novice, especially if the finish is to be paint instead of varnish.
Just to be sure of it, I grabbed our PMD builders' manual (version 3.5, July, 2011) just to double check what it said versus my memory of what we did with the stitches. My memory was that that we glued entire seams (with the "mustard" epoxy and silica, not the "peanut butter" epoxy and wood flour) at one go, i.e, not "tack welded", and pulled the stitches after the epoxy had cured, heating a wire end with a a long necked butane lighter to loosen 'em up as needed. We then went around with wood flour thickened epoxy to fill in the holes and any other remaining irregularities. This is pretty what the manual described on pages 48 and 49, though the accompanying photo of the butane lighter business shows somebody with a regular cigarette lighter in hand fixin' to burn his thumb. We had better sense than to emulate that detail!
The instructions for the transoms on pages 40 and 41 are different. It shows the transoms wired into place with the twists on the inside, then "tack welding" with wood flour thickened epoxy, then, once that cures, "gently snip the wires holding the transoms in place." It doesn't explicitly say "snip and pull" the wires, but I seem to remember that's what we did, more or less, which makes sense.
Anyway, your Cocktail Racer (or the original Waterlust in this thread) might be entirely different, for good reasons, compared to what we did five years ago for our PMD based on an eight year old manual. My advice? Follow your manual. If something is unclear, or just doesn't make sense to the point where you think you might not understand correctly, give CLC a call before proceeding. They're always glad to hear from builders.
.....Michael
RiccardoL,
As Michael says, follow the manual. Except for when you don't. And when you don't, have a good reason not to and know what you're doing. If you don't know why and what you're doing, follow the manual.
If you have to ask, follow the manual. Very clever people have worked out a sequence of operations that will succeed. CLC depends on customer goodwill. If you have a sucky building experience, you won't come back, you'll tell your friends and they won't come, either, and John Harris will have to live off of what people will put in his hat as he plays Stairway to Heaven on his trombone at the subway entrance. So you can bet that following the manual will yield a great boat.
Once you have some experience under your belt, then you'll be able to consider riffing on the manual. Just like a good jazz player, you can't improvise until you can play it straight, transpose it, etc. And, just like a good jazz player, just because you can improvise doesn't mean you should. The musician has to have something to say with that riff and the boat builder needs to have a reason to deviate from the manual.
In my case with pulling the stitches, I have definite goals that I've come up with and I'm willing to go to the extra trouble and take more time to achieve them. I'm also willing to accept the risk and not blame CLC if it fails. After all, they included a perfectly good manual.
So while I prefer tacking and pulling the stitches, and I think that's the best way to go, that's for me. Others should make their own decisions. Following the manual is never a wrong decision.
Have fun,
Laszlo
FWIW: Vice Grips = third hand
Catboater suggested: "Vice Grips = third hand"
Well they do have a place in my toolkit but I'd have to wonder how employing a pair for pulling stitch'n'glue wire stitches would free up my other two hands? For what I've done so far it seems two hands is enough: one to hold the heater, t'other to hold pliers, of whatever style. I use linemans' pliers sometimes, needle-nose others.
As for heat? Stopped by local Menard's a couple days ago for some foam rollers (at the suggestion of Bob Santore elsewhere here) when I spied one of those fuel-filled piezo ignition lighter gizmos, this one touting "wind proof" torch-like flame.
I dismissed the suggestion earlier on, owing to the experiences I'd had with similar products before for lighting candles & such; more convenient than a simple match but lacking in anything special otherwise.
This new thing is impressive! Visible flame's maybe 3/4" long & about 3/16" dia. at the device's tip but holy mackerel it'll light a candle wick in an instant with the nozzle held 2" away! Sounds like a mini-blowtorch & behaves like one on a small scale! Bonus is it's refillable using fairly commonplace butane lighter refills. I'll be trying this thing for stitch-pulling the next time I'm doing that operation.
Pretty impressive at a $1.99 price point at Menard's - SKU #'s 6408108
Here's an enthusiastic endorsement for spclark's approach to using a soldering gun to expedite pulling stitches. Searched this forum after pulling a few with a soldering iron to soften epoxy and calculating how many hours it would take - MANY!
He suggests #4 copper. I got a foot of #4 and #6 (free when the clerk couldn't figure out how to charge me... Lowe's) and the #4 was clearly to large. #6 took a little tapping on the anvil to taper it 'til it fit.
Worked like a charm! Seconds per pull: https://youtu.be/Pi6tlPZhcts
Correction: that's #8 wire in my setup
-Andrew
Like everything else working with epoxy, neatness goes along way. I used a plastic ketchup bottle from the dollar store to tack my hull with thickened epoxy. I never got near a wire on my SW Dory and just pulled the wires out. No heat needed.
I agree, neatness is a useful attribute when dealing with epoxy. Still, there may be times when it's aparent that simply tacking seams isn't going to be enough, or you wish to fillet over wire stitching for a particular operation.
What I subsequently learned by experience after I initiated this thread almost 2-1/2 years ago is that simply putting a couple of large-diameter copper wire in the soldering gun's tip holders, then touching one each to the ends of a stitch left long enough while the gun is energized, causes the stitch wire itself heat quite rapidly, weakening the surrounding epoxy sufficient that pliers will then pull the wire stitch free in seconds.
A useful technique when necessary, certainly faster that waiting for heat from a soldering gun to propagate along a stich wire prior to its being pulled free.
And best not inhaling the smoke from burned epoxy that can result from leaving the gun tips in contact with a stitch for too long.
The efficacy and neatness of tacking notwithstanding, I'm a first time boatbuilder and followed the instructions (think of that!), which led to fillets entombing wire stitches. Then I realized pulling them was a possibility and got out the soldering iron... SLOW! Then I discovered this thread: FAST AND EASY! Thanks! A lot quicker & neater than cutting wires flush and sanding those that protrude (per manual).
Thanks for all the great tips. Next time (if there is one) I'll see about tacking. I think I just figured out the CLC marketing model (aside from the great boats) - when you've built one of these rascals you've learned so much that you have to do another so the learning doesn't go to waste! And the cycle repeats!