Hello Mark,
I too am building my first boat. I was very surprised at how easy the stitches came free. I ran epoxy over all my stitches (as opposed to running it between them and then removing the stitches). Some were a little harder than others and the pliers scuffed the wood in places where they made contact during pulling. I wasn't too worried about that since the scuffed areas could be sanded and would be taped over anyway. The fact that I plan on painting my boat has given me some freedom to not fret over small blemishes/scuffs and the like. A piece of leather held between the pliers and wood probably would have alleviated any scuffing during stitch pulling. Of course I think of that now as hindsight is 20/20.

You asked if such a small amount of epoxy is on the wires that they aren't really epoxied that well. No, my fillets were quite large and sloppy so the stitches were epoxied very well. I found that on the initial pull on the wire there was a snapping point where the wire broke it's bond to the epoxy and began to slide out. This left a tunnel of sorts. I did manage to break off about 10 or so stitches out of a couple of hundred. They are still in the seam but I cut/grinded them back so they wouldn't be a problem. In fact the instructions I have been working from actually say to leave them in. I however decided to go with the majority of the builders who pull them out.

I'm sure you'll make out just fine with your stitches. You'll have some stubborn ones but you'll get them taken care of in one method or another. You can always search for removing stitches in the forum messages and find tons of threads discussing that exact problem. There was a rather lenghty one sometime in December or January I believe.

Good luck on your project.

--Tony

: Hi Guys,
: I'm building my first boat, an Osprey Double. I have it stitched completely
: and it is progressing nicely. I am at the point in the manual where I am
: suppose to glue my outside seams. I am having a hard time wrapping my
: brain around how easy it will really be to remove the wires after the
: epoxy sets as instructed. Do you put on such a small amount that the wires
: aren't in fact glued? Any advice would be much appreciated. I've read the
: blurb about heating up the wire with a soldering iron...is this something
: people have needed to do on large numbers of wires?

: Additionally, I enjoy looking at photos of finished boats as i'm seeking
: inspiration for finishing and outfitting mine. I was wondering of any
: online or hardcopy references with many photos (other than this wonderful
: resource). Many thanks. Happy paddling.

: -Mark