Re: Gluing down decks

Posted by M Davis on Apr 15, 2006

I was in exactly the same place you are now when I glued the deck on my WR 18.

After much anguish I finally settled on a drip shield made from a trash bag cut along the side seams for the back deck. It was a lot of trouble to rig - taped in place with the blue masking tape. It did catch a little bit of dripping, very little. It was a real chore (really a major PITA) to remove after cutting my hatch even tho I went to extremes to place a carefully designed pull cord just for removal.

Based on that experience I went w/o on the forward deck. Not a very big experience base here with this being my first S&G boat. But, on the next boat I will do the following when I glue decks: 1. Do a couple of dry runs before mixing epoxy. 2. Put pins or nails at the ends, the aft cockpit bulkhead, and deck beam so a "set-it-in-place-with-no-shifting" thing can happen when the epoxy is spread and the deck goes on for real. 3. Thicken the epoxy more this time for a stiffer , less runny mix. 4. turn the boat bottom up as soon as possible so any drips run up against the shear clamp. 5. Have at least one helper for setting the deck sections in place - not a good thing to do solo unless you rig something to hang one end from so it can be lowered with completel control.

As it was, the forward deck w/o the drip shield turned out at least as good, if not better then the aft did as far as drips are concerned.

Hope this long ramble helps.

Happy building, MD

In Response to: Gluing down decks by Chris J. on Apr 15, 2006

Replies:

• Re: flip that bad boy. by James Eager on Apr 15, 2006