I tried to address this in the book. -- Keep the parts on the forms as much as possible. If you leave the boat for a long period, tape the deck and hull in place on the forms. Otherwise, return the pieces to the forms at the end of everyday unless there is sticky epoxy on the inside. If you notice the parts pulling away from the forms after fiberglassing, secure them back down while the epoxy is still greenish.

Forcing the parts back into shape is definitely not optimum. Life is much easier if you keep them the right shape all along. I am not too worried about the stress causing long term problems. Remember, if you are able to hold the boat together with pieces of packing tape, even lots of packing tape, the localized stresses can't be that great because packing tape is not nearly as strong as the fiberglass applied to the boat. If packing tape can hold the boat together, the fiberglass won't break a sweat.

> Nick and Others

> I have noticed many folks having trouble with hulls and decks being way
> out of alignment and am wondering, is this a really common problem and
> rather than stressing all the decks and hulls by pulling them beck into
> shape, what would cure this problem before it happens ??? It seems that
> pieces built on the same mold would just naturally fit together
> problem-free. There are a lot of great minds out there, and it would be a
> great way to kill some time, kicking this problem around and see what
> comes of it. I admittedly, have NO experience with this particular
> problem, but, when I run into a situation where a lot of the same thing is
> happneing to a lot of different folks, I'm thinking there is a big NO NO
> going on there. Is this happening just to one sort of resin? Is it a
> particular technique that is causeing it? Is the cloth being laid on in an
> inapropriet direction? Is there some kind of srinkage going on from the
> fiberglassed side and not on the uncoated, or just resined side? Are the
> halves being removed from the frames or mols too soon? Hmmmmmmmmmm !! It
> just seems to me that there shouldn't be this sort of "Warpage"
> on something built on a frame or mold.

> Also, when the two pieces are being put together with such force, are you
> not creating stresses into the boat that would make it susseptable to
> damage a lot easier? I'm a first timer and getting ready to start on a
> boat and this is a bit stressing on ME !!

> Any takers on these questions??

> Rehd