appearance of puzzle joints

I'm building a Peeler and really not happy with any of my puzzle joints so far. They are very strong, I'm sure but the extra sanding needed to make everything level, even after coating with unthickened epoxy, leaves a joint not worth looking at twice. Very irregular! I had too much stairstepping I guess.

I can paint the bad joint panel rather than clear coating but would sure like to see some of the pretty wood. The seats are unglued so maybe they can be clear,, although CLC likes to use paint on horizontal surfaces.

Has anyone ever used a thin cover board over the joint or any other magic???

I'm very much enjoying the build but not happy with the puzzles. Thanks for any help.  Ken.


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RE: appearance of puzzle joints

I wasn't really happy with the puzzle joints on my Skerry either but after completing the build and doing the finishing I found that they didn't look that bad.  I had an idea during the build that that's why the Coast Guard had that diagonal stripe on their boats, to hide the puzzle joints and that's what I was going to do but with just the right amount of sanding and epoxy it passes the 10 foot rule.  I don't know how long your joints have been epoxied but if it isn't too long, and I'm not exactly sure how much time is too long, you can use a hair dryer or heat gun to soften the epoxy and take them apart, clean them up and start over.

RE: appearance of puzzle joints

for the seats and outwales do not use weights to flatten the joints, get some super stiff hard and flat scrap lumber and make a sandwich of the joint and use clamps to compress them.  the joints will come out perfect.  get some large D clamps to reach the middle of the joint.  Support everything on your horses and leave the joints in the air so the clamps and boards are free to compress the joints together.  forget the flat surface with weights.  That is the only way to do the large joints though.  and you can never have enough weight!!  And dont stress on the look of the sandthroughs.  99% of the people that look at the puzzle joints on your boat all varnished will be like wow! how cool!  they wont even see the sand throughs.

RE: appearance of puzzle joints

On my recent Wood Duck 12 build, I used Nick Schade's technique of applying "dots" of cyanoacrylate every inch or so along the puzzle joints and spraying them with accelerator, but did it on the outside of the joints, working them into perfect alignment as I went along.  Then I flipped the assembled pieces over and glassed the insides.  It worked great.  Yes, it took a little longer than just glassing them on the inside, but it saved me from the mental anguish of mis-aligned puzzle joints.  I also found that a simple application of cyanoacrylate "de-bonder" would free up any place that somehow slipped out of alignment, allowing me to redo them easily at any time before the insides were glassed.  The "dots" on the outside were sanded off during the standard sanding of the outside of the hull.  This might be a simple way to ensure alignment on those joints which are too large to allow for SurferBill's clamping technique, which does work extremely well on smaller panels.

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