Morning Andy,

 Is your duck built already? If not we used White Oak for the sheer strips on ours and they are paying off. We paddle mostly back water and tidal creeks - plenty of bumps and tight turning. Then there's the transport method, back of the truck with a cushion between them.

 The WO is a bit of a pain to form to the sheers and requires heat and a special epoxy but it will take a beating.

Wow!  Those are great looking Ducks.

My hull is together and glassed on the inside.  It is ready to be flipped over and glassed on the outside.  I planned to use white oak or fir for the rub rails.  So, how did you make/attach yours.  How did you attach the deck and then glass the outside of the deck.

Thanks for the pictures.  They are inspirational!

  As far as attaching the WO to itself @ joints I used a product by smith and co. called Oak and Teak Epoxy. Worked well where other epoxy would fail. This was done at the beginning of the strip process though.

 As far as attaching the hull goes, our 10'er went smoothly but the 12'er was a challenge to my sobriety! Those two pieces had nothing in common when I tried to attach them. My solution involved drilling and screwing scrap strips to the hull to spread it to accommodate the deck. All worked out in the end though. Someone here posted a better solution and I can't find it or I would post a link. It involved thin narrow pieces of sheet metal with a small bend on one end (L-shaped.) The bend would hold the inside of the hull and a clamp would secure the outside thus holding the hull in place while you epoxy around the clamps/metal strips. Maybe the fellow will chime in or others with more advise.

  Thanks for the compliment, sounds like you're on the downhill side of the build. The boat will impress you, we have nothing negative to say about ours I tried to re-size the photo, maybe it will work better this time.

 Found it!

link

Thanks for the link and better pics.

Did you wrap the glass on the deck around the rub rails and onto the sides?

  Sorry Andy,

  I missed this yesterday. We may have a miscommunication going on, I used the White Oak for the sheer strips to handle any bumps/abrasions. My thinking was along the lines of a 'built in' rub rail. On our boats it is part of the stripping and yes it was glassed over at the same time as the deck. (It is one of the strips and flush with the deck.)

  Thinking about your situation (deck finished) I think White Oak is a bad idea, much too hard to form and the epoxy used for it may not be compatible with your brand. If you feel a rub rail is necessary how about a 'sacrificial' piece of material applied over the epoxy/glassed hull? Something not part of the structure of the boat and easy to replace. Another thought is the same material used to protect the keels, self adhesive and very tough. Keel Eazy is one and I believe another is sold here. If it works aesthetically it would be the easiest and fastest. Both of these could be applied later, if you find them necessary.

Thanks again.

The color contrast in your photo's lead me to believe that your "rub rails" stuck out proud from the sheer.  Now that you explained what you did, I see they don't.  I talked with CLC on the phone yesterday about this looking for a solution but came up empty handed.  In retrospect, I like your solution.  I'm using clear vertical grain fir along the sheer which is fairly hard.  By the way, when using epoxy on Oak, if you wipe down the wood with acetone to remove the oils that weaken the bond, you can get a good glue joint with regular epoxy.  Gorilla glue works great on oily woods too but you need a very tight joint and you need to clamp the joint very well because it foams/swells as it cures and tries to push the pieces apart.

Cheers and thanks for the advice.

Andy

Andy:

Did you find a way to attach your rub rails? I am also going to attach rub rails made from cedar. My present thinking is to make them sacrificial by just screwing them to the side of the boat so that the top of the rail is just at or below the shear seam. Any thoughts....anyone??

Newell,

Your method is the best that I've heard so far and probably what I'll do.  The rub rails on my Mill Creek 16.5 take a beating and need a fresh coat of varnish every now and then.  It would be nice to be able to pull them off to refinish and then reattach.  I'm thinking some nice flat head silicone bronze screws evenly spaced would look nice.  Only issue I can think of is that the screws will be going into a very thin piece of plywood with very thin fiberglass over it.  That probably isn't an issue though.  Might be good to use some bedding compound between the rub rail and the hull.

Andy:

This might not work for you but as I have yet to put the deck on it might be a possibility for me. I am thinking of drilling the holes in  the shear and then glassing bolts onto the inside of the hull. Tht way one could use bolts and not worry about the thickness of the wood or the holes gettting worn out over time. 

If you could find some Molly bolts that would work on the 1/8 inch ply you might be able to do the same thing. I think that you could find brass bolts that would work with the Molly inserts rather than the standard Molly bolts.

If you think of a better way, please let me know.