Hello Rich-

-Sorry to hear about your difficulties and regrets in the strip portion of your build. I am building a Duck Hybrid 12 and your must read notice grabbed my attention--I just finished the cove and bead on my strips. I was unable to find your refered post dated 2/27/10--all that I was able to find for that date was 1 post regarding a mill creek question. I did corrispond with someone in another post regarding his advice that you keep the forms in place and remove them only after tacking the deck following removal and glassing of its underside-was that you?? I plan to follow that advice....CZ

Hello again Rich,

I did find the post dated 2/27/10 and it did involve my interaction with Barry Parkoff. Were I messed up was that a post may not be in an exact cronology  depending on how long it ran and was bumped back up to the top. This post is currently in the 51-75 post listing----CZ

Here's a link to that message thread.

Laszlo

You are scaring me. This week end; The staples will be pulled and the hybrid deck will be removed from the Shearwater 14 I am building. Before removing, I plan to bore 6 locator holes through the deck into the shear clamps for linning back up after glassing the underside. Now, I think I may build a simple jig to hold the shape- width in the center while it is upside down. The inverted deck will be supported at the bulk head locations by carpet hung from saw horses. The thought of knocking the forms out after it is glued back together seems an opportunity for new problems. Thoughts?

Lew

I am the original person that posted about my hull flexing in after removing the forms per instructions. Please: just to clarify, it was not the deck that changed shape, but after fiberglassing the underside of the deck, the deck would no longer fit without planing down a considerable amount of the 1st sheer strips. That would have been unacceptable to me after all of the work that went into it. Putting the froms back in, at their orginal location was at the least tedious and frustrating, and their was much anxiety about how this was all going to work out. I would be more then happy to talk to anybody about this experience.

At this point I am getting ready to varnish, and am very pleased with the results so far, especially considering this is my first build. I have also decided to put a graphite bottom on per Lazlo's postings. I also felt his blogs were extreamly helpful. Thanks Lazlo

I've built a bunch of both versions and there was always some flexibility in the deck and hull assemblies.  They would spring out, but they sprung back together just as easily when I reassembled hull and deck for the last time.  

I never put molds back in, which seems like a huge hassle.  But I DID put some temporary spreader sticks in a few of the hulls to aid in alignment.  As soon as the hull and deck were wired together for the last time, there's no longer any need to worry about the hulls spreading, so out came the spreader sticks.  The spreader sticks are wired in place, so they function to pull an assembly together OR spread it apart.

I've used ordinary packing tape to pull the decks back to the right width.  Doubtless the easiest scheme.  

We've watched Eric Schade build literally dozens of the Wood Ducks in classes.  No molds, no tape, no spreader sticks.  He uses that stretch-wrap stuff and, 100% of the time, hulls and decks line up.  It's amazing to watch.  He says that one key is to plane the mating surfaces of hull and deck assemblies so that they slide easily on one another.

I'm thumbing through the current WD Hybrid manual, and my hairy arms appear in the many of the photos.  There don't appear to be any alignment issues that we couldn't manage with some packing tape and a putty knife used as a lever between the parts, at least on the boat we built for the manual.  

Bottom line:  When you build two assemblies with complicated shapes, you might have to do some fussing to make them mate up again after they are taken apart.  Reinstalling molds will do it, but that seems like more effort than is required.  Packing tape spanning the beam of the boat to pull the "clam shells" into a closer match, or some combination of temporary spreader sticks will do it if you're working solo.

With a helper to squish the clamshells to the right width, I don't think you'll need any of that.

Thank-you John for your re-assurances. The variable that I believe could make a differance in my build is that I did glass the entire interior of the bottom hull--and yes it was a departure from the letter of the manual. I have nothing to compare it to as the norm, but I can say that I did experience the need to exert some pretty good pressure out-wards in all but the center of the duck to install the forms. The stern and bow were the most difficult and in 2 of the forms I cheated and tacked it with a #3 finish nail and then hot glued it, because their was to much fatigue involved waiting for the hot glue to set.

Given my experiences and the pressures involved I am going to stick to the leave the forms in game plan because I did stray from the manual and I am pretty sure that with my long arms and my sharp hand tools that I can remove the forms and the hot glue residue with little trouble and buy myself as a rookie some piece of mind...CZ

As I mentioned in the original thread it seemed like my deck had flattened as the finished beam was at spec. I'm a little unclear about this...

>I've used ordinary packing tape to pull the decks back to the right width.  Doubtless the easiest scheme<

Do you wrap the tape around the whole boat after the epoxy has been spread on the sheer clamp? I'm not sure how you would squeeze the deck before gluing to the hull.

I'm referring to  a hybrid boat, not S&G

Thanks, I feel better. So, When I pull off the Shearwater 14 Hybrid deck, I will make sure I don't 'flatten it' - spreading the width while glassing the underside and I can adjust the width of the hull as necessary upon resassembling with sticks, forms, etc. And, remember to sneak home a roll of pallet wrap from work this week end.

Lew