Superglue to attach to spot tack deck

WD12 build is proceeding along and I'll be attaching the deck soon.  It's been sitting for a bit since I did the hull tacks, so I re-attached the deck in a trial run and found that I'm having a problem keeping the sides together - in the middle the deck/hull are about 1/4-in out of alignment.  I'm wrapping with plastic, and use a putty knife to pry the deck & hull into alignment - but it wont stay that way.  Should I use superglue as a tack to keep these points in line?


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RE: Superglue to attach to spot tack deck

I've never had good luck with superglue as a tack. Maybe I'm doing it wrong or I just have the wrong kind of glue, but it's never held pieces under stress together for me. It works fine for when the joint has low stress during application, but joints that have stress on them while being joined always fail for me.

Even if they did work, I don't like the fact that I now have a brittle piece of plastic with different properties embedded in the joint. Inhomogeneities can be stress concentrators For that reason I prefer to tack with the same epoxy/woodflour mix that I'll be gluing with. What I did with my WD12 was:

First I joined the deck to the hull using wire stitches, which had no problem holding everything in place. There were spots where I had to use a prying tool to overcome the springback, but once aligned the stitches held the pieces together.

Then I stabilized it by applying epoxy/woodflour mix on the outside of the seams between the stitches and waited 48 hours for it to cure. When cured, I removed the stitches and added shrink wrap at the highest stress areas.

It never moved throughout the decking process.

Laszlo

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