: Has anybody tried and had any luck with tape instead of wire stiching

I seem to recall someone trying to use duct tape, or packing tape, and having some success. I don't know why they wanted to, though. It is more expensive and not as efficient.

You'll need about $3 worth of wire, and $6 to $10 worth of duct tape to get started.

In drilling the holes for the stitches you create a line of alignment marks on each part. You miss that feature with tape, but you could offset that problem by drawing marks every 4 inches on each part.

With wire you can loosely assemble two or more parts and then progressively draw them together. Tighten each wire slightly, then move to some other wires and tighten them, and then go back to tighten others. The action of tightening the wires serves as lots of tiny vises or clamps drawing those parts together.

You can't really make the tape tighter. You have to first remove it, and then replace it -- and you'll have to come up with your own way of tightening the gap between the parts while you put that tape back on.

If you find that you have to do some tweeking to correct alignment problems, or to adjust for parts that are slightly offsize, then you can untwist the wires slightly, and retighten as needed. There is no inherent "slight" adjustment with tape. You just take it off and put it on elsewhere.

An interesting alternative to wire is nylon cable ties. The very small ones are not very expensive in lots of 100. You can progressively draw them tighter, but loosening them is another matter. If you overtighten one then it is probably easier to just cut it off and replace it. The cable ties are made of soft plastic materials which hand tools can cut easily, so you won't damage or nick any sharp tools, like planes or chisels.

I've seen pictures of exterior forms being used, too. In this case the plywood panels are forced into the forms, which hold them in alignment while the inside seams fillets are formed and covered with glass tape and resin. Once that hardens the boat is removed from the forms and the work on the exterior is done.

The older way of building over an internal form can be used, too. Check back in the archives for postings by Mike Hanks about how he built his plywood version of George Putz's 'Walrus' design. I believe he has some pictures showing the construction method. Basically a frame of stringers or chine strips is assembled over ribs, bulkheads or forms. At this point the thing lools like the frame for a skin-on-grame kayak. Instead of covering the thing with cloth, though, plywood panels are fitted to the chines. If you just screw the panels to the chine in a few spots you can secure them to each other with glass tape and resin. Then, when this has hardened, you back out the screws, remove the internal chines and frames, and fill the internal seams with fillets, glass tape and resin.

If you think about it, the concept of etitch and glue is that you are replacing the wood chines with molded-in-place chines made from glass-reinforced plastic.

Hope this helps.

Paul G. Jacobson