Page 33 - Folk Boat Year Book 2021

Then the magic begins. 18-gauge copper wire stitches
are used at approximately 50mm centres by threading
the wire through predrilled small holes thus, stitching
the edges together, first loosely until the edges are
perfectly together and then tightly by twisting the
copper wire using pliers. Thus, the chines are formed. To
control the shape, the planks are similarly stitched to the
moulds. An alternative to copper wire is to use thin cable
ties, but they require slightly bigger predrilled holes and
once the cable ties are tied, they cannot then be
loosened only tightened which is no good.

Step 6 is to spot weld the edges together using a Cyanoacrylate glue commonly
known as ‘superglue’ with glue spots at approximately 40mm. centres. Once the glue
has cured in around 10 seconds, the copper wire
stitches are removed and a fillet of thickened epoxy
with the consistency of peanut butter, is applied to
the inside of the spot-welded planks. Wiping a neat
even fillet of thickened epoxy is tricky. After a few
mishaps, I eventually hit on an efficient process which
is to first stick lengths of low tack masking tape
around 15mm from each edge, thus controlling the
spread of the fillet. After removing the tape, the next
step is to smooth off the fillet and to run a length of
fibreglass tape along the seam which is wetted
though with unthickened epoxy. The entire joining
process from copper stitching to taping is shown in an
illustrative mockup I made.

Step 7 is repeat this process for the top half of the shell. The two halves are stiffened
in appropriate positions with seven bulkheads or stiffeners.

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