First, the glass butt

Posted by Charlie Jones on Jan 14, 2007

will ALWAYS show- ALWAYS. The layers of glass used will telegraph through the glassing you put on top of the hull. Always. Plus Payton's method requires sanding away the top of the ply in a "dish" shape so the butt will be flat- that'll expose ply lines in your sides, which would be uglier than scarfs. If you DON'T dish it, then the butt will be prouder than the ply and will , as I said, ALWAYS show.

Secondly, a scarf joint in 4MM ply is a 15 minute job with a sharp bench plane. If you've never done it before, get a couple of scrap pieces and try it. Stack the ply stepped back as far as you want the scarf to be, then plane away- the plies themselves will guide you to a straight scarf. Make sure you have a sharp plane- no- I mean a SHARP plane. Google "scary sharp" for one method.

On the duct tape- you might get away with it, BUT if anything shifted OR you needed to adjust tension somewhere, you could get into difficulties. The beauty of the wiring is you can adjust the shape of the boat as you go, loosening or tightening wires individually. You'd lose that capability with tape. The tiny little holes will virtually disappear once it's all done anyway. Besides- it's the nature of the method- EVERY one who has ever used it will expect to see the filled holes and only other builders will notice anyway. Just make sure all those holes are evenly spaced- the real ugliness is when they aren't.

In Response to: Glass butt joint? by Sander Saelthun on Jan 14, 2007

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