Somehow, in all the forum reading and books, I missed the point that you remove the internal strongback from the forms before starting the deck. Is this the common method used? It clears up the concern I had in building myself into a corner. Can someone elaborate once more? How many hot melt spots per station?

Phil

Phil you are wise to think ahead and ask questions.

There were no modern sea kayaks built as strippers in the eighties when Nick and I started building them.

We both had previously built stripper canoes using an external strongback, which continues to be the standard method for canoes.

With sea kayak construction the question was, "How do you build a hull AND deck, and not have the strongback in the way?"

Nick designed the "internal strongback", so the strongback was not an impediment to stripping the deck.

I realized once the hull was glassed, an external strongback could be removed and the deck stripped on the stations left in the hull.

The standard method of holding strips to stations was with staples. To avoid all the holes a dozen different "stapleless" stripping systems evolved, consisting of shock cord, special jigs, tape, fishing lines and many more. However, there are problems with these systems.

1: In the case of special jigs and clamps, you have to make, or buy these devises.

2: With these systems clamps and jigs must remain in place until the glue on each strip dries, limiting the number of strips per day.

3: None of these methods fix the strips to the stations, so strips float, and can cause alignment problems and change the shape of the finished hull.

I used hot glue to make jigs in professional woodworking shops and saw that hot glue could be used to strip without staples and fix strips to the stations at the same time. Hot glue also can be used between stations to clamp strip joints, so mechanical clamps can be removed and stripping can continue without waiting for glue to dry. There is no limit to strip application.

When I started using hot glue I used it for the deck and hull sides on my kayaks, and continued to use staples below the waterline. I would knock out the stations with a heavy mallet used against a pry bar inserted between the deck and hull. This worked, but occasionally caused some damage to the deck as I pryed up the deck to insert the bar in the gap and against the station.

I realized I could avoid this problem by marking the locations of the stations in the hull after the strongback was removed, knocking the stations out to break the hot glue and other glue bonds and then tack the stations back in place with a small amount of hot glue at the sheer line. The stations were hard enough to knock out when I still used staples below the waterline. When I eventually switched to all hot glue I knew I must knock out the stations from the hull before stripping the deck.

Once you learn how to use hot glue you will find it holds better than staples. If it has not been made clear to you previously, the key to using hot glue is it will "release" when struck hard from the side. Hot glue is a thermal plastic which will break cleanly of the surface with a hard blow of a mallet.

I use hot glue as a standard method in my plans and I use an external strongback. So, to answer your question, stapleless stripping with hot glue is not a common building method, and it is only with the use of hot glue removal of the strongback is needed.

When builders using the internal strongback starting using hot glue, they had the added issue of, "How do you knock out the stations when they are held by the internal strongback?" People using an internal strongback had to figure out how to use hot glue on their own and how to deal with removing stations from the internal strongback.

So, when building methods cross pollinate, new problems can arise without well know solutions.

Internal strongback, or external strongback, in either case hot glue can be used if the stations are marked in place in the hull and the strongback is removed and the stations tacked on the sheer line with one dot of hot glue on each side of the station. The hull becomes the new strongback for the deck stations and the deck is easy to remove because it is held in the hull very minimally.

Sorry for the long complex answer, but history shapes what we do, in complex ways.

I hope I've answered your question.

Rob