Working on my Guillemont kayak and having some issues near the stern keeping the strips in line with the last few forms. I have been doing a no staple method but for most of the length, but with these forms I have been using staples. I have been using 9/16” staples and due to the force needed to push the strip towards the form, the staples do not hold. Should I use a longer staple? Tried to hot melt from the back side and I think that would work if I could get the staple to hold even temporarily. Failiing that, open to some unique clamping ideas.
the Guillemot is similar to the Petrel family and when you get towards the ends there can be a lot of twisting and bending. using 1/4 cedar strips will certainly challenge your skills in how to hold these ‘tortured’ pieces.
fwiw, i have had absolutely no luck with hot melt glue. a longer staple would possibly help…but at least for the T50 line you are at the top of the line. and staples under this kind of pressure can start to rip into the wood.
after a lot of experience i routinely use two techniques that have, for me, the right balance between hassle and results:
i have a big box of “strip holder’ pieces like in the picture below in a L and U shapes. that can hold things in positions if you have the room to also get a c-clamp in there. i don’t have a good picture of one in use but the picture below shows some U shaped ones with spring clamps holding them to the form. when i have less space, it might be an L shaped strip holder’ connected to the form with a small C clamp that can be set very tight. after a lot of boats, like i said, i have a whole collection of ‘strip holder’ pieces.
more recently, i have become a big fan of packing tape with filament in it. wickedly strong and flexible to work in all kinds of spaces. i usually buy a box of 6 to 8 roles to get through a build. 1 inch and 2 inch widths are the most useful to get through a build.
the other thing that can help is applying heat to a strip to soften it…..this takes a bit of practice….hot enough to get the strip to loosen up but not so hot that you burn it.
the other thing that i have been doing is building with 3/16 wide strips….much easier to twist and bend as the relationship between bendiness/twistiness and thickness is not linear - so a little thinner is a lot bendier…
anyway, all of these ideas can work in combintation to tackle anything….
I use T50 9/16” staples.
I have had holding issues in high twist areas as well. Occasionally, as a drastic measure, I’ll use a sheet rock screw with a large washer.
The other issue I have is that they don’t make staples like the used to. I find them thinner and more prone to breakage than they used to be. I’ve ground down a diagonal cutter so one side is flush to remove the broken bits.
As Howard has already mentioned the stern on the similar petrel play was a bit of a pig with the bends and twisting. I ended up using an old steam iron to do a localized steam bend with reasonable results, just don’t try using the domestic iron! Even the I finally got frustrated enough with staples pulling out to shoot a couple of screw through one strip which pretty much sorted the stern out. The screws are in the waterline pale strip near the stern. The holes were filled with a wood dowel plug and today I can’t see them.
I’m currently building a rob mack baidarka which has even more extreme bends and twists. I’m using a heat gun to soften the strips and basically pre-mould them into shape before using hot glue to tack them to the stations. It takes a bit of practice to avoid scorching the wood but it means the strips don’t need a great deal of persuasion or force to stay put.
I have some turnbuckle style hold downs. I wrapped it around the offending form and ratcheted the turnbuckle at the top of the form. This brought the strips against the form on either side. I then soaked some thin “tea” towels and microwaved them. I then draped the steaming towels where I need the bend to hold. Finally I put a regular towel on top to force the steaming towels steam/heat into the strips. I left this for about 4 hours.
I took off my first clamp and the strip remained against the form. So far so good.
I had to go to the screw/washer method. Thanks for the suggestion, or really the permission that that is a solution when dealing with extra bendy kayak’s!
I’ve built 4 Petrels and in every case there were spots in the bow and stern that, no matter what I did, the strips did not want to conform to the forms. Screws and washers in every case.
