: Not good. If the outside is not yet glassed or sealed with epoxy then you are
: only dealing with the glue you used for the strips. If the outside is
: glassed then you may have had some resin drip through, which is just going
: to make it more difficult.

: Bashing works. Usually. If you can get a steel barand place it at the edge of
: the form, so it presses on the form, but is jsut next to the strips, then
: banging on the end will direct a lot of energy to the affected area. Make
: sure the form is free of the strongback, and start bashing near one side.
: Hopefully the form will be able to twist, which helps to break up any glue
: bonding.

: I assume you can get the forms off of the hull, so they are only connected to
: the deck. If so, you'll be able to work on this without crawling inside the
: boat. In a worst case scenario, you'll need to cut away as much of the
: form as you can, then sand out the remainder. Drilling a series of closely
: spaced holes in the forms, then cutting between them with a keyhole saw,
: will get out the bulk of the form. A belt sander with a very coarse belt
: (65 grit or so) will chew out most of what remains. When you get close to
: sanding into the deck itself, change to a finer grit so you have more
: control and don't gouge the deck too badly. You could also use a curved
: bottom surform file, or a plane with an iron which has been ground to a
: round edge so it nearly matches the curve of the deck.

: Heat will soften your glue, or epoxy resin, but just moving to a heated
: garage is not going to give you a high enough temperature. You would need
: to use a heat gun and direct a high temperature (250 to 500 degrees F) at
: the affected area(s) for a long enough time for the glue to soften. Then,
: while it is soft you need to separate the form from the deck. The
: temperature at which the glue will soften is close to the temperature at
: which the wood will char, so keep the heat gun moving to avoid more
: problems, and aim it more at the forms than at the wood of the deck.
: You're going to end up destroying a few forms. You'll need to heat an area
: for long enough so that keep the heat can travel through the thickness of
: the form to soften all the glue along the entire depth of whatever drips
: leaked through.

: You might try drilling a pair of holes in each form near the keel line, then
: connecting adjacent forms with a loop of rope. A bar or block of wood can
: be used to tightly twist that rope loop, and draw the two forms together.
: A bar clamp or a pipe clamp might do the same trick. With this kind of
: constant tension on the forms, your heating may be more effective. Ideally
: you'll be able to see the effect as they come loose as you heat the glued
: areas.

: Good luck with this. It may be a struggle, but you should be able to
: completely remove the forms from the cockpit area eventually. Any beyond
: that you can leave a bit rough, as no one will see them.

: PGJ
Thanks for the ideas, it is an external strongback, and its the hot melt glue that is keeping the boat together. I am positive a heat gun will work, I'll just have to heatt eh affected areas in the middle forms, eventually I should get it apart.
Thanks.