I've been reading a lot on this board and elsewhere in preparation for my first stripper, which I will be starting in the spring. This winter I'll be gathering the tools and materials, building the strongback, cutting the forms, and ripping the strips.

Rob Macks recommends hot-melt glueing the strips to the forms, which makes sense. I don't quite understand how to dislodge the strips from the forms afterwards. It seems like you would have to build the hull, and dislodge it before starting the deck, otherwise how would you get at the forms? Is this correct?

Also, I think it was Rob that mentioned that hot melt glue has kind of a weak bond, and a sideways whack would break the bond. If you were to use this method of dislodging, you would have to unscrew all the forms from the strongback so that you could whack them loose from the hull. Then you'd have to go through the hassle of re-attaching them and lining them all up again so you could build the deck. I doubt if anyone does this, so how, exactly, do you remove the deck and hull from the forms when they're hot-glued in place? On Rob's website he talks about prying them away. Is there any other way?

While on this subject, are all hot glues pretty much alike? I want to make sure I get a glue gun that handles a generic glue stick that can be bought anywhere, and not some brand that has to have it's own proprietary glue sticks. Are glue stick sizes pretty standard?

Thanks in advance, and thanks to all for all the answers I've received so far. I already bought my plans, it will be a Hans Friedel designed Spirit, purchased through Newfound Woodworks.