Boat Building Forum

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stitch and glue
By:John Gardiner
Date: 4/9/2000, 3:34 pm

Am currently building Nick's stitch and glue Guillemot. I decided that scarfing 3mm plywood was for the birds, so I butt joined it and used butt blocks of 2 layers of glass tepe internally 3 inch and 2 inch respectively with a 2 inch tape externally. Checked to make sure it would bend with no flat spots, it did. Made all female moulds and used tie wraps (smallest I could find). When it came time to radius the seams I could plane off the remains. I built bottom ,sides and deck sides ,on the female moulds. Held them in place with two male moulds in the cockpit area. Made gunwhales of half x threeequarter full length. Set the deck in place with cockpit cutout and tiewrapped. Then used 6 inch lengths of 2 inch tape between the ties to hold it together. When the epoxy set I lifted it off, turned it upside down, filleted the seam at the apex and after a couple of hours bonded it to the gunwhales. So far so good. I just finished a Guillemot Double in all redwood. My wife christened it Yin Yang with some Martinelli and we had a small voyage in it Had a tough time joining the deck and hull, taping seams, lining up etc. Love the Guillemot Kayaks