First Canoe

[Jim Dodd]

I hope you have your strongback, secured to your saw horses.
I use Fish line, (203 ) to align forms. I leave it on, until I'm stripped close to center. Nice to be able to check alignment while stripping !

Just be very minimal with your glue !
It's not fun to scrape excess glue, especially from the inside.
You only need enough glue to hold the strips together, until the epoxy takes over.

It took me a few canoes, before I realized that !
Oh, My first canoe ! Took me days, to get the Yellow glue, scraped and sanded.
Then the Yellow glue, still showed through the resin !, ( Polyester resin at the time)

Jim

PS ! I use C-clamps to hold my forms to the cleats. I can easily adjust on the fly, and I won't need the clamps, until I take the hull off the forms anyway.

Looks great !

 

[WoodsNWaters]

@Jim Dodd
The 5/8" connecting plates have 4 screws up into the strongback and 4 screws down into the sawhorse. The sawhorses are ones I copied from a post by @Robin and are pretty heavy. It's all on cardboard as I saw in one of your posts.

The Titebond nozzle is way too big and I'm looking for a different glue bottle. Even small Titebond bottles have the 3'8" wide nozzle. Every source is clear that it doesn't take much glue. I know that TB isn't required but I know it performs well. I'll review more posts on this forum to see what others recommend. Small, plastic-bristle, discount store "artist" brushes are great for spreading small amounts of glue but obviously tedious for stripping. The wait time for the stem forms means I'm more than a week from the first strip.

There is a line down the strongback, but only a chalkline. The forms bottoms are the same width as the strongback top which should help if I stay centered. When I first used a laser level, I was converted. So very convenient and not deflected by contact with the work.

Thanks
Dave

Oh. Forgot the pic.

 

[Gamma1214]

I used a syringe (without the needle) from Tractor Supply for my 1st couple of builds (pretty easy to suck up some glue by tipping the bottle) but I've started using a small, rinsed-out Elmer's school glue bottle on the last couple. Seems to lay down a small bead & it's easily sealed when done for the night by twisting the cap.

Don't get overly stingy with the glue. I had one hull (my Raven IIRC) where some of the glue joints pulled apart during sanding because I was overly zealous about minimum glue. Not much fun and I'd rather scrape some extra glue from the interior... a fine line to be sure.

 

[Jim Dodd]

I found glue bottles at a Hobby Lobby. Don't know if you have one near by ?
A good hobby store should have glue bottles, with long small tips.

I strive to get a pencil lead diameter, glue bead, or less,.
If you see squeeze out ? That's too much.

Evan if you starve a glue joint ? you can add a little glue, and strap the glue joint.

My strongback legs. With these ? I'm able to tilt my strong back.
This helps, when stripping the football, as well as sanding, the entire hull.

 

[WoodsNWaters]

The hobby shop 30 miles from here closed maybe 15 years ago. Rural living is great . . . usually. The idea of a twist-open glue nozzle sounds good. I'm sure I can find Elmers glue here.

No yellow pencils in the house, only mechanical pencils with 0.07mm and 0.05mm leads. Those might be too small as glue guides. My school drafting pencil from the '60s has a 1/16" lead. The books here say 1/16" to 1/8". One pic shows the cove full which I suspect caused them some scraping although the caption is only about the right amount of glue.

So I suppose a yellow pencil lead is 1/16" ? I suspect a glue bead of 1/8" would be too much.

Thanks for the warning about being too stingy since most warnings are about too much glue.

--

I built a sacrificial lamination of the same strips as the stems. I'll cut this in a few days to see if the center glue has set up. I can probably cut 2 or 3 times if a few days is not long enough.

In the mean time, it's raining outside and I can set up the center 14 forms although I'll have to move the level around to add the end forms later. Might look for other projects instead so I can set up from one end to the other as suggested to me earlier.

Thanks all

Dave

 

[Jim Dodd]

Dave

Amazon has a very wide variety of glue bottle application tips.

As for glue, anything, but Yellow. Beings you are using Bead and Coved strips ? Your glue joints will be near invisible.
So the glue won't show much anyway.

Jim

 

[Gamma1214]

I suspect a glue bead of 1/8" would be too much.

Yep, I think that would be too much. Aim for 1/16 & if you get too much squeeze-out, cut it back a little (move faster with the glue bottle). I like to see a little here & there but not have it all over the place.

Honestly, it's probably something you need to do (and, maybe, screw up a little) to get a feel for it. Like so many parts of this project, just dig in, don't think TOO much and it will come together just fine. (The second or third are easier, I promise)

 

[Cruiser]

I could post new picks or just re use what I posted 2 builds ago, if you go sown 15 pics in this post, there are pics of glue in the coves, squeeze out and clamping:

https://www.canoetripping.net/threads/light-weight-solo-tripper-build.105054/post-105920

At the end of this post are some thoughts on glue usage as well.

If you scroll up from this post, there are other pics of glue bottles and such posted by other members.

Brian