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Re: Strip: separating hull from deck
By:Paul G. Jacobson
Date: 1/2/2008, 5:16 am
In Response To: Strip: separating hull from deck (dave)

: Hello All,
: I am building an Outer Island and I used the stapleless method. The problem
: is now I have a deck that seems to be glued to the forms,

Not good. If the outside is not yet glassed or sealed with epoxy then you are only dealing with the glue you used for the strips. If the outside is glassed then you may have had some resin drip through, which is just going to make it more difficult.

: I tried bashing
: the inner forms out and the deck started to come apart.

Bashing works. Usually. If you can get a steel barand place it at the edge of the form, so it presses on the form, but is jsut next to the strips, then banging on the end will direct a lot of energy to the affected area. Make sure the form is free of the strongback, and start bashing near one side. Hopefully the form will be able to twist, which helps to break up any glue bonding.

I assume you can get the forms off of the hull, so they are only connected to
the deck. If so, you'll be able to work on this without crawling inside the boat. In a worst case scenario, you'll need to cut away as much of the form as you can, then sand out the remainder. Drilling a series of closely spaced holes in the forms, then cutting between them with a keyhole saw, will get out the bulk of the form. A belt sander with a very coarse belt (65 grit or so) will chew out most of what remains. When you get close to sanding into the deck itself, change to a finer grit so you have more control and don't gouge the deck too badly. You could also use a curved bottom surform file, or a plane with an iron which has been ground to a round edge so it nearly matches the curve of the deck.

: The garage is
: unheated here in Minneapolis and I have a shot at a heated garage, will
: heating it up soften the glue?

Heat will soften your glue, or epoxy resin, but just moving to a heated garage is not going to give you a high enough temperature. You would need to use a heat gun and direct a high temperature (250 to 500 degrees F) at the affected area(s) for a long enough time for the glue to soften. Then, while it is soft you need to separate the form from the deck. The temperature at which the glue will soften is close to the temperature at which the wood will char, so keep the heat gun moving to avoid more problems, and aim it more at the forms than at the wood of the deck. You're going to end up destroying a few forms. You'll need to heat an area for long enough so that keep the heat can travel through the thickness of the form to soften all the glue along the entire depth of whatever drips leaked through.

You might try drilling a pair of holes in each form near the keel line, then connecting adjacent forms with a loop of rope. A bar or block of wood can be used to tightly twist that rope loop, and draw the two forms together. A bar clamp or a pipe clamp might do the same trick. With this kind of constant tension on the forms, your heating may be more effective. Ideally you'll be able to see the effect as they come loose as you heat the glued areas.

Good luck with this. It may be a struggle, but you should be able to completely remove the forms from the cockpit area eventually. Any beyond that you can leave a bit rough, as no one will see them.

PGJ

Messages In This Thread

Strip: separating hull from deck
dave -- 1/1/2008, 8:52 pm
Re: Strip: separating hull from deck
Paul G. Jacobson -- 1/2/2008, 5:16 am
Re: Strip: separating hull from deck
Dave -- 1/2/2008, 9:47 am
Re: Strip: separating hull from deck
ken -- 1/2/2008, 10:18 pm
Re: Strip: separating hull from deck
Bill Hamm -- 1/2/2008, 1:39 am
Re: Strip: separating hull from deck
JohnK -- 1/1/2008, 10:05 pm