Poorman's Stapless Method

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Tim Eastman
Posts: 245
Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2005 12:40 pm
Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S.A.

Poorman's Stapless Method

Post by Tim Eastman »

Ran into some issues last year with trying stapless method of only rubber bands. Try as I might the rubber bands were not holding the strips tight to the forms. Even hot glue was not holding the strips to the forms and was messy, time consuming etc. (could be wrong glue used too).

Money ran out (unemployed still) and temperatures went down (unheated garage for a workshop) so I had most of a winter to think this over.

The rubber band Idea is not new and is explained in other areas of this board. But the idea for the bungee cord clamping to the forms was borrowed from Bear Mountain Boats' stapless kit. Frankly I couldn't afford it but it looked like a great idea. But their idea was for bead and cove strips and would be difficult to use on rolling bevel without damaging the "corners" of the strips.

So I stayed with the rolling bevel but kinda borrowed their idea of clamping the hull to the forms.

If you have a drill press (or a Shopsmith) drill some 1/4" holes around the perimeter of the forms about a fist distance apart. These will contain 1/4" dowels which hold the rubber bands. This is a little extra effort but you'll get a lot of mileage out of doing this later on.

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Important note! I did staple the beginning strip to the hull forms to keep the above strips from sliding off the bottom of the form. The gunnels will cover it anyway so I figured why not.

The bands will give you a LOT of grief when adding new strips unless you do something to hold the bands up and away from the hull forms. This is where some 2.5" PVC pipe comes in handy. The pipe sections go under the bands so the strips can be slipped in and out along the length of the canoe. Ten foot section of PVC pipe was around $6 at a local big box store.

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The neat thing about this is the glued strips with the rubber bands get bungee clamped to the hull forms and then the pipes get slid over to the other side to slip in the next strip. Which increases band pressure on the newly glued strips and further presses them against the hull forms.

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Strips get dry fit and checked for proper splice location...
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Extra bonus; the bands actually hold up the new strips while you run your glue line.
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Functional shots of attaching the bands to the forms;
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Final shot showing rubber bands in use and bungee clamps in place.
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Tim Eastman
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Aljo
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Joined: Sun Jan 03, 2010 4:02 am

Post by Aljo »

Really great idea, thanks for sharing!
I was thinking to make counter moulds, to avoid all the clamping ( Iused the method for stapless described in Ted's book), and make a faster job, but I think I will try this on the next build!
Was the down pressure from the rubber bands adequate to press the strips tightly agains one another?
Tim Eastman
Posts: 245
Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2005 12:40 pm
Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S.A.

Post by Tim Eastman »

Aljo Hi.

Yes the rubber bands exert plenty of pressure to hold the strips against each other. The force is great enough to deform the strips away from the molds if you don't band them down to the forms. I noticed that as soon as I started going up around the sharper curve of the hull.

Michigan winter in my unheated garage has forced me to halt the project and get "mama's" car in the garage.

I like the system. Like all new systems it takes getting used to and I'm still working out the kinks.

Also of note; use more rubber bands to get more pressure. Meaning don't pull the rubber bands tighter around the wood strips. They will dent the wood strips if banded too tight. I'm building rolling bevel so there's no smooth bead to run over with the rubber bands. They'll dent the corners of the strips if too tight. More rubber bands will spread out the banding load.
Tim Eastman
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Be an example worth following
alick burt
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Joined: Wed Sep 07, 2005 2:41 am
Location: united kingdom
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Re: Poorman's Stapless Method

Post by alick burt »

Hi Tim
Thank you for sharing this one I think I might try this on my third canoe which I am about to start.It will be my first stapleless build.I'm going to use bead and cove strips so will probably put some bits of 6mm dowel in place to protect my cove from the rubber bands.
How many strips would you glue at any one time or can you just keep going?
cheers
Alick
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Redbird Bernie
Posts: 28
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2010 3:14 pm
Location: Illinois, USA

Re: Poorman's Stapless Method

Post by Redbird Bernie »

Hi Tim,
So you use the rubber bands to keep the strips firmly against each other until the glue sets while the bungee cords hold the hull against the moulds. That means three things, you need to remove the rubber bands before installing each new strip, you can only install one strip at a time until the glue has set, and you need longer and longer rubber bands to hold the new strip in place as work progresses up the hull. Doesn't it it become a bit difficult and tedious to wrap the rubber bands around existing strips. Wouldn't it be easier to just use masking tape to hold the new strip in place against the other?
phiphiferry
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Mar 30, 2012 12:26 pm

Re: Poorman's Stapless Method

Post by phiphiferry »

Thanks for sharing. It was really helpful and easy to understand.
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Richard
Posts: 50
Joined: Wed Sep 08, 2004 12:27 pm
Location: Wales U.K.

Re: Poorman's Stapless Method

Post by Richard »

Hi Tim,
Just picked up your thread. I am going stapless on my next build, and this idea looks good. Thanks for sharing.

Richard
Whitworks
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Joined: Wed Aug 17, 2011 2:47 pm

Re: Poorman's Stapless Method

Post by Whitworks »

I had reasonable success with cheap 1" luggage straps, with the quick release cam fasteners, over each form using pine wedges about 3/8" wide, 3" long, tapered from 3/8" to zero) under them to keep the strips snug with the forms and the previous strips (someone else might have used this method but I haven't been able to find it yet).

I was wary about about bungees and rubber bands because the pressure control is limited and it looked a bit Gulliverian.

In areas where I needed more pressure I tapped in more wedges under the strap over the first wedge. When twisting became a factor, and if the wedges couldn't hold things down, I clamped the 'Canoecraft' 'L' shaped ply pieces to the form over the strip holding the strip tight to the form and the preceding strip using a scrap strip to protect the previous cove.

I could preload about 3 strips under the straps a few inches above the previous strip, spaced about an inch apart, run a bead of glue on each in one operation and then slide them all down and clamp. Very often I only needed to clamp the top one to keep all three in position, and if I saw an area where it wasn't snug to the form, I just tapped in a few more wedges.

The only concern was that I had accumulated so much pressure on the forms that they would mark the strips, but when I lifted her off, there were no marks, but this might have been helped by the fact that I sanded a small radius on each corner of the forms before stripping.

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