Re: "Tabbing" on a CH-16

Posted by Dave Houser on Mar 14, 2005

The typical CLC building sequence completes the inside of the seams over the wires then cutting the wires to allow the glassing of the outside. Tabbing is gluing the seams between the stitch wires to allow removing the wires before making the inside fillets and taping the seam.

The trick to tabs is to mask the outside seam between the holes before you tab. Don�t thicken the epoxy too much, thinner than mayo, so it settles into the seam. Make a very small radiused fillet between the wires. I use a Popsicle stick to strike off the tabs. After the tabbing sets pull the wires and mask the holes and balance of the seam. Make a wider fillet, using a larger radiused card or stick to strike off the final larger fillet. The small tabs will not snag the larger radiused strike off tool. By masking (and if you don't make the thickened epoxy too thick) the epoxy will fill the holes and cracks without dripping or wetting the outside wood, no filling effort and no sanding off drips will be required.

Use a much tighter radius on the fillets where the panels meet at an acute angle (the keel at the bow and stern) than where they meet at an obtuse angle (keel under the seat). I change spreaders, with different radii, along the length of the keel.

The other trick I do when making the larger fillet is to let the fillet soft set (2 hours) before laying down the tape and wetting. The fillets won't squish around and leave finger dimples. The usual method of taping over a wet thickened bead of epoxy is quicker and less effort but not as neat. It�s a matter of esthetics inside the boat.

Inspect the tape when the epoxy sets to flypaper sticky (won't come off on your finger but still is very sticky about 2 hours). Press down any bubbles and that nasty salvage edge. Rewet the any dry spots.

In Response to: Re: "Tabbing" on a CH-16 by Laszlo on Mar 14, 2005

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