: Hi Captains

: Is there a kind of glue or epoxy that'll melt in a solvent after it has
: dried, and which won't melt in water ?

Yup, quite a few. Some are better than others, of course.

You allude to alcohol later on, so lets start with that. Shellac will dissolve in alcohol, but is reistant to water if it is applied thick enough. Plastic resins that compose lacquers are also very soluble in lacquer thinners, but reisitant to water. Styrene plastics will resist diluted alcohols (beers, ines and spirits) to such a degree that they are used for dispoable drink glasses, but they fall apart when exposed to Methyl Ethyl Ketone, or acetone -- neither of which you want to breathe.

Cellulose nitrates will dissolve in a mixture of alcohol and ether, forming a product called collodion. You can buy collodion at a drug store, (it has been used since the mid 1800's as a liquid sealant for cuts and bruises -- long before Band-Aids (r)) but the little bottles of it, sold under the trade name of Nu-skin, I believe, are a bit steep. Books on old-time photographic processes will describe how you can make your own. For wet-plate photography, collodion was mixed with a light-sensitive silver compound and early photographers had recipes for making all of their own materials. Careful, though. Liquid collodion will burn fiercely, and the dry components are just a bit safer than gunpowder. I guess in the old days they really did "shoot" a photograph. Thickened collodion does make a fair glue, though.

: If there was, many of us urban paddlers and holiday resort bungalow renters
: could solve their storage problem. They would just have to keep a stack of
: plans somewhere in a shack.
: Chances are nobody would steal those.

No? What do you use when your privy runs out of toilet tissue, sears roebuck catalogs and corn cobs? Why those handy big sheets of plans would look plenty good for the job.

: Assemble and glue the kayak on the first holy day, solve her on the last.

And just how many clamps should I bring with?

: Any idea ?

Have you considered a skin-on frame boat with a removeable skin that is laced on, not sewn on, and a frame held together with screws and bolts. slide off the skin and disassemble the frame.

: I am perfectly sober.

I congratulate you on that state of affairs, but I'm not sure it is relevant to the topic. (I doubt you could have come up with this idea if you were passed out drunk.) Keep sober and keep thinking of creative ideas, but remember that not every creative idea is going to win a prize. And a few are going to sink from under you, so be sure to wear a PFD when testing any boat that might be designed to disolve under certain conditions. You never can tell when you might be paddling behind a tanker that is slowly leaking exactly the solvent that will change your padlling trip into a long swim home.

PGJ