Boat Building Forum

Find advice on all aspects of building your own kayak, canoe or any lightweight boats

Tape the seams *PIC*
By:John Caldeira
Date: 1/6/2011, 7:06 pm
In Response To: Strip: Hybrid Night Heron shear clamps? (Damian wentzel)

You've received some good replies. No need for more wood along the sheer. It is the fiberglass and epoxy that gives the deck-hull joint its strengh.

First, I give the inside seam a bead of thickened epoxy using the pastry-bag method (http://www.clcboats.com/shoptips/epoxy_and_fiberglass/e_pastry_bag.html ). This bead of epoxy works into the joint and forms a fillet to round-off the angle between deck and hull.

The epoxy fillet is followed by a strip of fiberglass tape that is pre-wet with epoxy when it is rolled up in a cup, so it only needs to be rolled out along the seam.

For the hard-to-reach ends, the pre-taping method described by Paul works great (see pic below). I use either a little hot-melt glue or a few drops of thickened epoxy to hold the tape in place until the cloth is wet out with epoxy from a brush on the end of a stick. To prevent a lot of epoxy leak-through, I put masking tape along the outside seam at the end areas and slightly thicken the epoxy used on the end tapes.

John

Messages In This Thread

Strip: Hybrid Night Heron shear clamps?
Damian wentzel -- 1/5/2011, 8:57 pm
Re: Strip: Hybrid Night Heron shear clamps?
Paul G. Jacobson -- 1/5/2011, 11:45 pm
Re: Strip: Hybrid Night Heron shear clamps?
Bill Hamm -- 1/6/2011, 12:44 am
Re: Strip: Hybrid Night Heron shear clamps?
Dan Caouette (CSFW) -- 1/6/2011, 5:53 am
Re: Strip: Hybrid Night Heron shear clamps?
Bill Hamm -- 1/6/2011, 1:49 pm
Tape the seams *PIC*
John Caldeira -- 1/6/2011, 7:06 pm
A temporary sheer clamp clan keep a fair curve *PIC*
John Caldeira -- 1/6/2011, 7:12 pm