Re: Shearwater deck insta

Posted by David K. on Jun 4, 2006

Last weekend, I connected deck to hull on my Shearwater Standard, with stitching, "tack welds" and hand- and tool-installed shmoo. Three things that turned out to be quite important aids: 1) Pay close attention to the beveling shapes of all the joints. These details are vastly clearer in the brand new instruction book (which I happened to receive just before this critical step). And when you pre-fit the deck and hull, spend some time verifying the fit with your block plane. The deck, bow & stern, was wider and slightly longer than needed to fit the hull properly. 2) As you glass the inside of the deck, before it is dry, use some pipe clamps to draw the most curved part of the deck together to the same width as the hull is at the matching points (work off the bulkheads.) 3) As you do the final stitching, stitch the center of the boat in near-final, but leave the last two feet or so loose, mix up some "peanut butter" epoxy, and lather it into the hull's pointed bow and stern such that when the deck is fitted, it pushes the goo out. Scrape off the extra, then wrap the ends of the deck/hull good & tight with plastic and then tape. Then proceed to do final stitch tightening, "tack weld" between stitches,which you can actually do with your (gloved) hand on full stretch reach. Don't worry about getting all the length filled until the next day, after the stitches are removed. Then use a 2' long piece of spare slender plywood, with the end shaped about like the profile of a lemon (pointed end) to apply a good quantity of shmoo.

The next boat I make will probably have a sheer clamp in the kit (somehow I need to use the 22 clamps I bought before my Shearwater kit arrived), but I sure do love the sweeping up-turned curves of the Shearwater. "Nice lines" is the most frequent comment on the Shearwater.

Have fun.

In Response to: Re: Sheer Clamps by LeeG on Jun 1, 2006

Replies:

• Re: Shearwater deck insta by LeeG on Jun 4, 2006