> Here is the experience I had putting the deck on my CLC 17. In spite of
> the fact that my planing of the sheer clamps was less than professional -
> the deck went on real easy.

> I put the rear deck on using 3 or 4 straps and nails. I did a trial fit -
> liked how it looked - prepped the surfaces - put epoxy thickened with
> silica on the sheer clamps and the deck underside (I marked the deck
> underside with a pencil during the test fit. I had made one of the little
> spacing tools shown in the Chessy plans - because I was deathly scared of
> putting a nail through the hull. I laid the deck in place - applied the
> straps starting at the stern - and pounded in the nails as I went. I think
> I had to move straps two or three times. Everything went perfectly. I even
> managed to pound the nails in without marking up the deck or bending
> anything - quite an accomplishment for me.

> Then I took a break - it was about 11pm - but I was all stoked up and
> wanted to finish the job. It was too late to pound nails on my back porch
> without waking up the neighborhood - so I did the front deck with
> strapping tape. I went through the same procedure as the back - but
> wrapped packing tape instead of pounding nails. This worked out great too.
> However, in the morning - a couple of wraps had slipped. These were the
> ones where I failed to overlap the tape onto itself. If you use strapping
> tape - make sure you wrap it around the full circumference and overlap
> onto itself by several inches. All the wraps applied in this manner held.
> I think I also ranked the tape much tighter than needed -and I may not
> have wiped the hull down as well as I should have. In any case - I was
> horrified to see the resulting waves in my beautiful deck. But rather than
> throwing a tantrum as I would have years ago - I set out to fix things up.
> I filed the hardened epoxy off the under side of the deck and sheer clamps
> as best I could. Then I went in with sandpaper and various scrapers and
> wood remanants until the spread sections were looking pretty good. Then
> mixed up some glue - smeared it in as best I could and strapped it down. I
> ended up with some small gaps - but pretty fair lines. I filled the gaps
> with some epoxy putty. It's not perfect - but nobody can notice but me. In
> fact after rounding the sheer - it looks kind of cool - one more line of
> color.

> Oh yea - I went back and put unnecessary nails in the front for symmetry.
> I kind of like the way the brass looks. Since you have the stitch holes
> anyway - and I was in a hurry to paddle - so just put the footbrace screws
> through the hull - I wasn't too worried about perfection.

> For me - attaching the decks was fun and easy and I'm no handyman w/
> little building experience.

> Go for it!

> BTW - Ted Moores puts the sheer clamp on the deck in his Kayakcraft book -
> never would have thought of that.

> PC

Hello everyone,

I have seen several references to a problem with the epoxy oozing out of the sheer/deck joint and the builders not able to get at it because of the straps and tape and what have you. I remember one post way back where a strip builder suggested running a strip of duct tape over the sheer edge of the hull, which allowed him to strip the deck and then glass it without it sticking to the hull. I wonder, if your hull is already glassed then would this idea work-run a strip of duct tape along the outside of the hull so that when glue oozes out onto the hull it just oozes onto the duct tape which you might then peel off, hopefully taking the epoxy drips with it?

I might mention I have never put a deck onto a kayak, yet! I was just wondering if this would work. Anyone ever done this? How did it work?

Kelly T