: Hello to all,

: In an earlier thread someone asked about stapleless building.It was remarked
: that Joe Greenley of "Redfish Kayaks" uses the slot & spring
: clamp method and produces tight joints in his boats.

: Can anyone describe to me what the "slot and spring clamp" method
: is?!

: Thanks, Kurt

Hi Kurt

I haven't seen Joe's forms personally, but a friend and neighbor uses the technique as well and what he does is route a 3/8" wide groove in his 3/4" thick plywood forms, 3/8" from the edge, and approx. 5/16" deep ( slightly less than half the thickness of the ply.) For added strength, he puts a coat of resin in the groove. Where-ever the strips pass over a form, the spring clamp will hold the strip down by clamping it over the strip and into the groove. You may have to take the rubberized end off the spring clamp for the groove side, but it holds very well. He then uses other 1" spring clamps with pieces of foam in the " jaw " and puts them over the glued strip and grips the previous strip to hold them in place. The foam protects the strip edges. Usually about 3 or 4 between two forms. Yes, it takes a few clamps to do this, but I have seen few ideas that are as Possitive a holding system as this. I picked up 100 - 1" clamps to go around the boat. It takes about 10 to 15 minutes for the glue to set and you can move around the boat and start new stirps fairly quickly, with the exception of the twisted ends of the bow and stern of some boats. If purchased in bulk from a hardware or welding supply, you can get a fairly good price. I was able to get the 100 Pony sprimg clamps for approx. $1.40 each and around here, that's about a $1.00 savings over the hardware shelf price. Per clamp! STILL.... if you only plan on building one or two boars, it could be an expensive solution. There are some good alternatives that would be much cheaper. Maybe just do the groove system at the forms and use PVC sections to clamp along the strips between forms. ?? And there are others....

Hope this helps.... I don't have a picture handy.

Rehd