Excellent news Randy, it is good to hear that you got the little beggars out.

If you try the tube/rope technique, this is what worked for me.

The tubing you need is just the cheap vinyl stuff with no reinforcement in it. I got mine at Canadian Tire, but it should be available in lots of plumbing and hardware stores. The rope I used is from an outdoor shop, and is for miscellaneous climbing purposes, fairly round, smooth and stiff. It is pricier than other options, but you don't need much, and the firm round cross section is helpful. Buy some tubing first, then go looking for rope to fit.

To get the rope into the tube, cut lengths of rope a couple inches longer than your tube pieces, melt and taper at least one end (two if you want to keep re-using the ropes), and use a heavy sewing needle to thread a 1 foot piece of string or thread though the rope just behind the melted end. Suck the thread ends through the tube with good old lung power, and pull the rope into position. If the rope is at all snug in the tube, pushing it through can be a bit frustrating but pulling it is easy.

When I made my fittings, I filled under the tube "loop" with epoxy, microballoons, and colloidal silica, and shaped the result into a nice roundish hump which smoothly graded flush with the top of the tube. You need to cut your glass pieces on the 45 degree bias to make it shape better. This approach adds a bit of weight, but the resulting structure is not going to get damaged easily by gear being stuffed and banged around it when loading or paddling. When the humps set up firmly enough, I epoxied several pre-cut pieces of glass over it, let it cure hard, and pulled out the tubes. I used a vacuum clamping to hold down the glass, but in your test, you will figure out what you can make work. If the glass doesn't want to behave, more taper to your hump around the tube loopmay help. Alternately, I expect that you could also use plastic bags of sand to pin the glass down, but I haven't tried this.

To remove the tubes, I first pulled out the rope, then trimmed one end of the tube more or less flush with the deck, then pulled and twisted the other end of the tube with a pair of vise grips Worked like a charm. If you carefully place one end of the tube close to the deck in the first place, trimming isn't needed.

This all resulted in very strong fittings with glass smooth interior surfaces.

Good luck,

Allan Edie

: I dripped penetrating oil into each fitting last night. This
: morning I screwed a wine cork puller into each end of what was
: left of the glue stick ends and stretched until they started to
: shrink then my wife clipped off one end and the remaining glue
: stick popped right out. Won't be using that approach again :((
: I will be doing this again in a couple of weeks so I am going to do
: some more testing - in order A) teflon wrapped glue sticks B)
: Plastic tube and rope C) solid rubber shock cord. I need to come
: up with a reliable plan without the stress factor:)
: Thank you Dwight, Will, Al and Simeon:))
: Randy