Welcome to the new Bear Mountain Builders Forum - an interactive internet service we provide to encourage communication between canoe and kayak builders
Started up the build on the Freedom 17 again. (laid off so money is kind of weird right now) Been doing some experimenting with stapless clamping. Found a really good supplier for 1/4" bungee cord to wrap around the hull forms and still using rubber bands to band the strips to each other. Still going with rolling bevel because that's my gig and my therapy. Other peoples mileage may vary.
So what's with the pipes? they help with tension yes but they help to load new strips under the bungee cord bands and when that strip's done then move them over to the other side to insert the opposing strip. By moving them over it holds the newly glued strips very tight to the hull forms. I ran into problems last year with just doing the rubber bands only. When I started getting up around the curve we started having issues with the rubber band actually augmenting the curve and tending to fold the strips in towards each other. The hull bands seem to have ended that. So far I am very pleased and it's humming along nicely. For going stapless this is not hard. No funky wooden jigs.
Rolling bevel is easy enough. dry fit a new strip and eyeball how much needs to come off and pull it out. Two or three minutes worth of a hand plane beveling and you're ready for a glue up. Slight mod to the Freedom design is no outer stem. Doing finger joints like our solo.
Thanks for looking!
Tim Eastman
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Be an example worth following
Looking good Tim, nice to see you back on the forum . I have been layed off for quite a while myself , so much time to build , but hard to spend the money.
