Re: Copper sutures

Posted by Laszlo on Feb 4, 2005

First off, I used half as many stitches as specified. This was to avoid labor and to get a fairer boat shape. In the good old days with hand-designed, hand-layed-out and hand-cut panels, extra stitches were good for a bit of torturing to fix those inevitable little mismatches.

Since I had purchased the computer-designed and computer-cut wood kit, I had pretty high confidence that the panels would be correct. In that case, you get a fairer shape by using a few stitches to hold things together and letting the wood flex naturally (as long as the wood is a good quality and as long as it's not trying to bend in 2 directions at once). In places where it had to be tortured, I put in the specified number of stitches.

Then I tabbed in between the stitches, removed the wire with pliers & soldering iron (NOTE - it only needs to get up to 140 or so degrees for an easy pull, so don't overheat) and was able to put in very nice thin fillets.

As far as hole visibility goes, if you use epoxy & woodflour for your fillets (instead of expoxy & cabosil) the holes end up nearly invisible. Cabosil has no advantages over wood flour for fillets since the fillets only provide a support surface for the glass tape. All the mechanical strength is in the glass/epoxy. Cabosil only makes the fillet harder and more brittle relative to woodflour. I've built 3 S&G boats and own a 4th, all with epoxy/woodflour fillets, and have not seen a single case of seam failure.

Laszlo

In Response to: Re: Copper sutures by terry on Feb 4, 2005

Replies:

• Re: Tabbing by Dave Houser on Feb 4, 2005
  • Reasonable result... by Chequerboard on Feb 5, 2005
    • Re: Reasonable result... by CLC on Feb 5, 2005
    • Looks fantastic! by Ken Leffert on Feb 6, 2005
    • Re: Reasonable result... by Mac on Feb 6, 2005
      • Arr, well done, Laddie! by Robert N Pruden on Feb 7, 2005
    • perfect by LeeG on Feb 7, 2005
• I'm with Laz on this issu by Robert N Pruden on Feb 7, 2005