Gluing the sheer clamps

The next step in the process is to join sheer clamps to the top of the sheer panels. The sheer clamps are ¾” by ¾” strips of wood that will be glued to the top edge of the sheer panel for the length of the kayak. This is again the epoxy mix with the cab-o-sil for strengthening. The end result creates strong edge to attach the deck to the rest of the kayak. I will use plane on these ¾” by ¾” strips, along with the plywood they attach to, to create the proper angle to rest the deck on.

Attaching the sheer clamps means gluing over 16 feet of wood to another piece of wood. We do this twice, once for each side. When the instructions suggest that you get a ton of clamps, they mean it. You need to position clamps about every 6-8” along the edge to ensure good bonding between the surfaces. I purchased some clamps at the hardware store, and also followed some instructions from CLC to make clamps from PVC pipe. I must say that it worked reasonably well. These clamps don’t get a great amount of pressure, but enough to keep things together. I did learn one thing; don’t get them too close to your heat source. In my case, that was my lights. I ended up melting one of them. I also had another mishap that I didn’t report in one of the previous steps. I melted my thermometer from a light. That made a bit of a mess also, but nothing on the wood.

Before the gluing starts, you need to check the sides of the panels to determine what side should be the inside vs. the outside. If you are going for a clear or bright finish like I am, get the best looking side on the outside.

Both sides should be glued at the same time, with the wood strips/sheep clamps to the outside. Make sure to use the packing tape between the panels to prevent glue from getting on that surface or gluing the panels together.

Getting the glue on the strips and panels for over 16 ft of wood, on two sides at the same time is a bit of a trick. You need to get the pieces semi-positioned but still be able to sneak between them to get the epoxy in the joint. I clamped down the whole thing at one end and slowly moved from one end to the other, prying things apart to get the epoxy in.

When that process was completed, I made sure everything was lined up properly with the edges. It’s also with noting that the sheer clamps are much longer than the panels, so you don’t need to worry about how much is handing off on each side. These get trimmed later in the next step, wiring the hull together.

This is a really long joint that needs to be string, so I kept the lights on for drying for about three days. I didn’t start the next step until almost a week after I completed this one. I’ve also had some very cold weather to deal with. We’ve had lows below 0 Fahrenheit. I was able to get the temperature around 60 degrees by placing plastic over the whole thing. This is also within the overall plastic sheet tent that I built. Things seem to be working OK with this, even at these temperatures. I think I’m going to run into some trouble when I need to do epoxy work with the whole boat, such as the surface or joint work. That’s coming up very soon (see next post).