joining hybrid deck to plywood hull?

how is the cedar strip deck of the Night Heron Hybrid high deck attached to the hull?


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RE: joining hybrid deck to plywood hull?

I've not built a Night Heron, but as your post has gone unanswered I'll step in. SOP is to join the deck and hull with fiberglass tape on the internal seam, the the exterior is 'glassed. Does that answer your question, or did you have something more specific in mind?

Best,

Patrick 

RE: joining hybrid deck to plywood hull?

I built a strip Petral, but I think it's virtually the same as yours when it comes to joining the deck and hull.

In "Building Strip-Planked Boats," Nick Schade describes a technique for applying resin saturated tape to the interior seams to join the deck to the hull, starting on page 259. (There's also a description earlier in the book at page 155.) Basically, he lays out tape, saturates it with resin, and then uses a stick with a nail end to push the tape in place. 

I was very skeptical that would work, but it did.

I taped the deck and hull together...and then noticed that in the process of cleaning drips of resin off the edges, that I'd messed up my alignment. I spent the next three days trimming the edges, testing the fit, and then trimming again. I never did get it perfect and ended up sealing a few small gaps with wood flour...it's worked out fine in the finished boat, and no one notices.

I laid the kayak on it's side, wore a long sleeved shirt, gloves and a mask, put a flashlight inside and stuck my head and one arm in the hatch. After a few false starts, I found that the tape undraped rather nicely into the seam. The only thing is, my foreward hatch was far back enough that I couldn't see how well the tape was set into the bow.

If I were to make another kayak, I'd make a small hatch close to the bow just so I could reach in with my arm and push the tape in place at the bow and stern...just to make sure...but that's just me. My stern hatch was set pretty far back to accommodate a skeg (which I haven't installed) so I just reached back there with my hands to push the tape in place.

Good luck.

 

RE: joining hybrid deck to plywood hull?

   The Shearwater Sport Hybrid has a shear clamp, kind of a lip facing inward at the top edge of the inside of the hull. To attach tne strip deck, after sanded and glassed on the underside, a heavy bead of thickend epoxy is laid along the shear clamp, and the deck is bedded in the epoxy, and held in place with tape, shrink wrap, what ever, until set.  Then the hull/deck joint is glassed over.  There isn't glass on the inside as you would use in full strip construction.  My boat was outside, on horses, and a storm blew through unexpectedly, and the boat got knocked off the horses onto pavement.  Several spots heed glass repair and varnich, but the hull/deck joint is fine.  It made the scratch on the bottom from a hidden rock seem insignificant.

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