Re: deck nails

Posted by Howard on Sep 14, 2004

i would suggest that the main reason for counter-sinking is that the copper nail is relatively hard compared to the surrounding wood...so that if, prior to glassing the hull, you try to sand them flush, you can easiliy end up scalloping out the softer wood around them....making for a rather unsightly edge.

i found when i did not get the nail flush or slightly countersunk, that i needed to use a very stiff sanding block (actually used a four inch steel bar) to sand the nail head down without scalloping out the surrounding wood.

that being said, a copper nail head becuase it is not porous will easily hold surface contamination...finger oil, etc. so they should be cleaned/burnished in prep and vacumed to remove dust before applying the deck glass.

finnally, like any small depression under the deck glass, you need to take care to ensure that you don't get an airbubble and that you properly wet out the cloth over the nail head. one technique is to precoat the nail head about two to three hours before doing the deck glass with a drop of unthickened epoxy. then by the time you get to the deck glass...you will have a soft bubble of epoxy that will smooth out when you squeegee your deck glass without creating a void(the white cloth) in the depression of the countersunk nail head.

the reason you get the void is that typically what happens when you squeegee very liquid epoxy onto cloth over a void, the cloth pushes down into the void with the squeegee and the epoxy is now pushed out of the void...then when the squeegee moves away from the void...the cloth is stretched out again pulling the cloth up over the void...with no epoxy there to fill the gap...creating a piece of cloth that is now not wetted out.

anyway...i appologize for the long winded discussion...best of luck moving forward.

hs

In Response to: deck nails by Peter on Sep 14, 2004

Replies:

• Re: deck nails by Mac on Sep 15, 2004
  • Re: deck nails by Howard on Sep 15, 2004
    • Re: deck nails by Mac on Sep 15, 2004
• Re: deck nails by Mark Camp on Sep 15, 2004
  • Re: deck nails by Steve Miller on Sep 15, 2004