First time building a strip canoe. I have a kit from Newfound Woodworks, an Abenaki. I am investigating staples, nailing, or stapleless for striping. I have a 70 year old wood sailboat that is under the care of a wooden boat boatwright and in discussing the build he suggested using plastic staples. He said that you can leave them in and in the process of sanding, firberglass and varnish they will all but disappear. Has anyone tried using plastic staples in the build?
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plastic staples
- Thread starter va125
- Start date
I used them for half a build. I did not like them and switched to metal staples to finish it.
They're thicker than metal staples and had more of a tendency to blow out the back of the strips. This would push the strips away from the form.
They tended to split the narrow strips if placed vertically (staple legs too close to the edge of strips). Admittedly I was using strips less that 3/4" wide.
When I beat the particle forms out the plastic staples broke the forms out in multiple places (not good if you want to reuse the forms).
On my last few builds I've used epoxy thickened with cabosil and sanding dust to cover the entire hull before the final round of light sanding. This seals any small cracks, gaps, and staple holes which means no epoxy drips through to the inside when fiberglassing. As a side benefit the staple holes are camouflaged as good or better than what I've seen from plastic staples.
Alan
They're thicker than metal staples and had more of a tendency to blow out the back of the strips. This would push the strips away from the form.
They tended to split the narrow strips if placed vertically (staple legs too close to the edge of strips). Admittedly I was using strips less that 3/4" wide.
When I beat the particle forms out the plastic staples broke the forms out in multiple places (not good if you want to reuse the forms).
On my last few builds I've used epoxy thickened with cabosil and sanding dust to cover the entire hull before the final round of light sanding. This seals any small cracks, gaps, and staple holes which means no epoxy drips through to the inside when fiberglassing. As a side benefit the staple holes are camouflaged as good or better than what I've seen from plastic staples.
Alan
Thanks Alan. My boatwright's idea is that you do not pull the plastic staple when finised, except for the form ones, and when you sand the hull you just sand the crown of the staple off and leave the legs in.
Charlie
Thanks Jim. My boatwright's idea is that you do not pull the plastic staple when finised, except for the form ones, and when you sand the hull you just sand the crown of the staple off and leave the legs in.
Charlie
I don't think there's any way you could pull the plastic staples that are in the forms. They would break in the process. I even had problems with them breaking while driving them. It got really messy trying to drive a 2nd staple in the same location. That isn't really a problem with steel.
Steel staples seem to just kind of squeeze their way through the strips while the plastic staples blew a hole in it. The leg of a steel staple will hold the cedar pretty good even if it isn't driven flush. The plastic staples, because they were blowing such a large hole in the wood, did not grab the cedar at all and the strips were allowed some freedom of movement.
The 9/16" plastic staples I was using would not drive flush to the strip.
Because the plastic staples were blasting a big hole in the cedar there was a lot of blowout on the back side of the strip. The shrapnel would get wedged between the strip and the form, pushing the strip away from the form slightly.
By all means do whatever you want but I was thoroughly unimpressed with their performance. There are cheaper and easier ways of disguising staple holes if that's your desire.
Alan
Alan,
My boatwright has said that he will lend me the plastic stapler to test out on the strips. I have the forms set up, but since the canoe is up in Maine in an unheated shed I will not attempt the stripping until the Spring.
I realize that there is a world of difference between theory and doing.
Thanks again
Charlie
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