Posted by Mark Jones on November 04, 2003 at 08:48:57:
In Reply to: Nails for planking? posted by David McAdam on November 03, 2003 at 18:33:53:
Hi There,
I have used nails for planking, but in my case it was the first layer of a plywood "in place lamination" wherein the second layer was glued/screwed. I had to pull a few of nails during final fairing for glassing and I must admit, their holding power was impressive. Of course, I'm talking about silicon-bronze annular ring nails.
If you choose to temporarily fasten your planking until the epoxy cures and then remove the fasteners, you'll be relying entirely upon the glued joint AND the interply glue laminations in the plywood itself. While many might be able to accept the plywood integrity, in my own case I'd always opt for permanent fasteners, just my personal preference.
Should you choose to use boat nails, you might be well advised to use very small pilot holes. Even in 1" thick fir those boat nails tried to cause a longitudinal rent in the grain of my chines. They are fairly blunt.
Well Wishes,
Mark
: On my squirt plans, it says to use 1" no.12 bronze boat nails for fastening the planking along the chine, sheer, keel and battens.
: On the other hand, in the Glen-L "Boatbuilding with Plywood" book, it says that using nails for planking is a "questionable practice".
: I have also heard that you can just use normal nickel plated screws as clamping pressure and then take out all the screws after the epoxy is set. This would result in almost a 100% screwandnail-free boat.
: I plan to sheath the hull with cloth and epoxy, but I don't want to have problems with nails popping out etc..specially on the curvy bits that are under stress...
: So perhaps some of you may have more experience of fasteners than I have, and can advise me on which type of fastening I should go for, bearing in mind the price of bronze these days, which I would have to import to Ireland from the UK.