Nothing to do with kayaks at all.. but in other ways you'd be hard pressed to find a better qualified bunch of guys to ask when it comes to gluing timber for use in wet places..

I'm building a deck at my inlaws over the christmas break (it's summer here) and want to make a feature curved toe-piece for the corner of the deck bordering the lawn. Roughly a 6 foot radius through 90 degrees.

It'll be 6 inch (150mm) H4 treated pine, it'll be in the sun, the rain, and almost constantly damp. The only thing it won't have to endure is being frozen any more severely than a frost. UV will only really affect one edge of each joint which 'should' be hairline anyway.

The piece is non-structural, and will be nailed or screwed to the under-deck framing at regular intervals.

My biggest concern is that the laminations will come unstuck along the top edges and gaps will open up. I plan to make it so that it springs back to a slightly larger radius than the finished dimension so that the inner laminations will be under compression once it's attached. Hopefully this will encourage it not to tear itself apart at the joints.

My thoughts at the moment are to use Gorilla Glue because it's very strong when properly clamped during set-up, remains slightly flexible, and is 100% water resistant so isn't going to gradually come unstuck in the damp. I can't think of any benefit in using epoxy for this task - especially given that the timber is likely to be quite damp when I glue it.

If anyone has undertaken a project like this I'd be very keen to hear how you went about it. I'm still trying to figure out whether I should make the lamination directly on the framing, or make a form and create the laminated section in my workshop before hand.

Thanks for your thoughts!
Simeon.