When my son and I did our Tern we had to put a soft jaw clamp on the bow and stern to get them to mate. I would stay away from the heat gun,to easy to do damage. You may try a hair blow dryer for some heat. You may have to take a few
days to get thing to move,sit and admire your work so far. We also had to use some wire to help the tape. I think the secret is take your time and look at the
Kayak at all angles and views to see that they are all fair and smooth.We have also used a thin blade to pry the edges after the tape is on to get them to line up. We used temps to move things also,most were in dry, some hot glued.
Don
: First time poster, long time lurker - I've always appreciated the wide
: ranging free exchange of information here. I'm a rookie S&G builder, never
: built anything in my life before, and extremely tool challenged, and it's
: primarily the fact this site, and others, exist that gave me the courage,
: if you will, to try this.
: I'm building an arctic tern 17 - after loose stitching the deck panels, I
: taped deck to hull, but the hull was seriously narrower than deck aft of
: stern temp form, so had to force the fit between large stern temp form and
: small stern temp form (with several wire stitches both sides). I epoxied
: deck panel seam/chines, but I must have removed deck too soon before epoxy
: had cured enough, because the deck spread back to being too wide, as if I
: hadn't forced the fit. Now, when I loose fit the deck back on, in that
: same area there's a good 3/8 inch overlap on each side of the deck over
: the hull; that overlap starts 10 inches aft of temp form, and runs another
: 25 inches or so til the fit is okay. I'm hoping someone has some advice as
: to how to proceed.
: Seems to me I can: 1. when it's time to retape deck to hull, put in temporary
: "spreader" at proper place in hull to force it wider to fit. I'd
: probably epoxy something in place, then remove it when I put in the rear
: hatch. I don't know if forcing a fit like that by using a temporary
: spreader would, over time, put too much pressure on the hull/deck joint.
: Or
: 2. use a heat gun or something to soften the aft deck chine/seam epoxy, and
: once softened, use a web strap to tighten it up, holding in place, til the
: epoxy hardens. Or
: 3. some combination of the above?
: Any thoughts/advice are much appreciated!