Practice Makes Pefect

Posted by Howard on Mar 4, 2005

Jon,

in my view the best way to take the stress out of "getting the deck on" step is to use an approach that "slows" it down....and lets you basically see what you are going to get before a "committing" step.

for a first time builder without an experienced helping hand....i am a pretty big fan of carefully using straps or string to allow you to position and curve the deck. the most important thing is having lots of straps/string wraps to ensure that you do not apply too much stress on one point on the edge of the deck. but this process of strings or straps (or tape) allows you to pretty much completely preposition the deck (without glue)...and see what issues, if any, you have in getting the whole process set up. you can then undo it....practice setting it up again...and then when totally comfortable....you do it a final time with glue and with nails if you are using nail construction.

after seven boats i am a bit of a fan of nailess construction....but even the last time i used nails i actually had the deck pretty much set with string and tape into its final position....so i was very relaxed in the nail driving process....and got my first "perfect" nail pattern.

i disagree with Ken about the reversability of ring nails....and this is through personnal experience. the ring in the ring nail gives the nail tremendous bite. they are extremely hard to reverse once they are more or less fully in. while i have pulled out a signle errant nail....this is typically if i have struck it wrong right at the start....not after you have put a bunch in and now see a problem with your deck position or curve. the one time i did that (four more or less fully placed nails and then detected a problem) it got pretty ugly ripping the deck off.

i have always suspected that the clc-typical paint job of wrapping the paint over about a one inch of the perimeter of the deck...is driven by typical "oops" encountered in the ring nail step.

anyways...i do not think you should worry and thousands of people have successfully gotten through this step...but if you are short handed and haven't done it before...some of these slow-it-down and preposition techniques really take the stress out of this step.

hs

In Response to: Re: Foredeck curvature by Ken Leffert on Mar 4, 2005

Replies:

• Re: Practice Makes Pefect by Ken Leffert on Mar 4, 2005
• Re: Practice Makes Pefect by Mac on Mar 4, 2005
• removing ring nails by LeeG on Mar 4, 2005
  • Re: removing ring nails by terry on Mar 4, 2005