Hi Alan,
I had planned on doing the uniwale with sleeve, then once that is setup, just cutting the dado for installation on the boat ...
Is there a reason you are recommending the tape over the sleeve? I was planning on the sleeve/shrink tube from Soller, providing the numbers looked OK.
Brian
I've always worried that once the carbon was applied the uniwale would be too stiff to bend onto the hull. I've never had one happily fit into place even without the carbon. I also worried about applying that much stress to the cured carbon upon installation, wondering how much that might weaken it.
I've used sleeves for separate inner and outer gunwales but made a rig so I could clamp them to the shape of the sheer profile while the resin hardened. I was surprised how much flexibility remained after it had setup for two days but I still worry about fitting a carbon covered uniwale. For separate inners and outers I'd be pretty comfortable applying them to the hull after covering with carbon but they're much easier to fit than a uniwale. I guess if your sheer profile allows it to easily fit into place before laminating with carbon you might be ok.
If I remember right the shrink sleeve from Soller is even more expensive than the carbon sleeve. I've used it for smaller projects and it really worked nice and left a smooth finish but I'm leery of using it on something so long. Obviously you can't put it into place until the fabric is wetout and, especially if the heat shrink tubing is a little on the smaller side, it can be difficult to slide it onto a project that's 3-4' long (let alone 16') without messing up the cloth. For those reasons (hassle and expense) I've never tried it on gunwales. But if I ever did I think the way to do it would be to slide on a 3-4' long section (I can't remember how long they're available in), shrink it, let it cool a bit, slide the next section on, repeat. This keeps you from trying to slide the unshrunk tubing over 9' of goopy sticky gunwale.
I have tried heat shrink tape from Dunstone thinking it would be the answer:
http://www.shrinktape.com/
It's a hassle too and I abandoned it. You can use a heat gun but it's made to go in an oven for a steady and consistent heat/shrink. I got some nice results from small samples but too often I get it too hot and wrinkle the tape or uneven heat causes wrinkles. It's better on shapes with constant curves but struggles with the flat edges found on gunwales. It can't apply much pressure to a flat surface. It's also difficult and tedious to apply to long gunwales.
Of all the things I've tried (including vacuum bagging and (failed) infusing) I think the simplest, cheapest, and easiest is probably the best. Glue it on, wrap it with bias woven cloth (which overlaps the hull and helps tie things together), and then do fill coats and sand to get a nice finish. All the other methods I've tried trying to get a nice finish at wetout have resulted as just as much, and usually more, time and work in the end.
Alan
