Stapleless using fishing line?

[Traveler]

Seen a few videos on this, and intuitively it seems it should work without needing a tonne of jigs and clamps (or at least have no more challenges than other approaches).

For example:

(it’s a long video, but the fishing line application starts at about the 3 minute point).

Do any builders here have firsthand experience with this technique for stapleless builds? Pros? Cons? Problems? Thanks

 

[Traveler]

Crickets on this one, so of course I had to give it a try. Here’s a little report out for anyone who’s interested.

Now building a 15 foot Ashes Solo Trip, and had accumulated some nice WRC so looking for a stapleless build that I wIl leave clear (always painted my exterior hulls up to now).

After doing up a test panel that was overall successful, I decided to go for it. Took it to about 3 strips past the waterline and had enough.

It produces a good result, and let’s you stack 3 or 4 strips per side in one session without worrying about the glue drying, since the line holds every strip as tight or tighter than staples.

But it takes very long per strip (around 20 minutes at the best of times), and gets progressively more awkward to keep things tight as you move up the hull. Once I got into the bottom section where every strip puts up a three dimensional fight, the time per strip went way up and it just didn’t seem worth it anymore. I switched to clamps and L-blocks once the stem forms were covered, and will take that the rest of the way.






For anyone else who might try this, I think it is a very good method to start with at the sheer line, especially if you have wild tumblehome curves where I would argue it will hold tighter to the forms than staples. But once you get close to the waterline I would move to a more “traditional” approach to stapleless construction. I would not have a problem using it again within those limits.

Bye for now

Tony

 

[Jim Dodd]

A few concerns, that you might answer ?
Does the fish line stay between the strips when you sand ?
Is it visible, after glassing ?
Were your fingers sore from pulling the line tight ?

Will the string would let the beads fit tight in the coves, and making a tight glue joint ?
Thanks !

Jim

 

[Jim Dodd]

Oh, I use a bandsaw all the time to cut the tapers on the strips. I'm betting you do the same ! So handy !

Jim

 

[Cruiser]

I have read about this before, but it always seemed too fiddly ... nice to know that it works and it is indeed a bit fiddly.


Brian

 

[Traveler]

A few concerns, that you might answer ?
Does the fish line stay between the strips when you sand ?
Is it visible, after glassing ?
Were your fingers sore from pulling the line tight ?

Will the string would let the beads fit tight in the coves, and making a tight glue joint ?
Thanks !

Jim

Hi Jim. Sorry for the delay in answering your questions. Not finished yet (4 more strips to close in the bottom), so can only give a partial response

1) Once done, the fish line is just cut across the whole sheer line and then pulled out strand by strand from between the strips. So no, they are not there when you sand. On the test panel I did the line came out very easily with a gentle tug, so hopefully there will be no issues for the real deal.

2) The only marks that I can see so far are some slight gouges at the tops of each bead (planking has to be bead up) from the line cutting into it as you pull it tight. You can see this is the photo below. These gouges are covered by the cove on the next strip up, so shouldn’t be visible afterwards. It looks like the lines will however also leave some very slight marks in the coves as well, but these are so faint that they will disappear with normal sanding.
@

3) No real cutting/soreness in my fingers - I just unrolled the line from the spool it came on, which also gives a comfortable grip to pull things tight. Good idea to clamp the line that goes over the top of each strip as you go, so if you somehow drop the spool and wind up chasing it across the garage floor as it unrolls 20 feet of line, you don’t lose the tension in everything you have done before (ask me how I figured this out).

4) The line does allow a tight fit between strips as far as I can tell - good squeeze out and the joints look fine. As noted above, the lines basically cut a little gouge in the bead so that they wind up flush with the surface, so don’t interfere.

Once I finish the planking the bottom and pull the line out I will give an update if any of this changes.

Brian - yes, it is fiddly - not sure I would do it again, but it does work well for at least the tricky strips around the tumblehome. Night and day shifting to the L blocks and clamps for the bottom - so much faster and easier to install each strip. But once you factor in the per-strip wait time for glue to dry (which you don’t really need with the fishing line approach since it lets you do up to probably 3 or 4 strips per session) I am not sure it is all that much faster overall, just easier.

All that said, after almost three weeks of this I am coming to the conclusion that for me at least, life is too short to park your staple gun. It’ll be out again for my next build.

thanks

Tony

 

[jffdejongh]

life is too short to park your staple gun

Isn't that a bumper sticker?

 

[sailsman63]

Re: line in the joint. I've also done this a couple of times, and in my case the line did stay in the joint. I'm someone who sees all the flaws in my own builds, and I have to say that I really can't see these after glass and finishing. It is, however, a bit fiddly. Also has troubles with high-torsin loads on strips. (Strips that twist a lot along the length.)