I think the only reason people use copper wire for S&G is because they leave part of the wire in the boat. If they adhere the panels by taping the inside, the wire is trapped. If the wire was ferrous it would interfere with a compass. I have always felt this was not a good way to build an S&G kayak.

If you put thickened epoxy in the outside facets in between the panels it will hold the hull together nicely. You have to fill these openings eventually anyway. Then you can pull all the wires out.

I measured the wire supplied by Pygmy and it comes out to about 21 gauge (.033") so 22 gauge steel wire should be OK. I think I bought 2 blister pak rolls of 22 gauge wire at Home Dept last time and it lasted me the whole boat. I like to waste a lot of wire. The 22 gauge steel is pretty good at pulling the panels together without breaking, but sometimes you will snap a wire and have to reinstall it.

I do not recommend using anything less than a 1/16' drill bit to drill the holes. Thats what is recommended by Pygmy. I break about 6 or 8 bits during the construction of a boat. The 1/16" ones are cheaper and easily available at Home Depot. This hole size seems about perfect. Any smaller and you will have more trouble and spend more time inserting the wire into the holes, and you will end up breaking more bits which have to be more expensive to replace.

It will look ugly until you sand it, but then you will hardly notice the holes. For the Pygmy way, the holes get filled in by the saturation coat of epoxy. For the outside seams the epoxy is thickened with wood filler which gives it strength and a nice brown color.

Good luck. It looks like building the S&G Night Heron is a lot of fun.

Regards,
Steve Pituch