Thread: Staple remover

Howdy,

I've been involved in building strip boats for around 25 years now including dozens of canoes and kayaks.

We used staples in the early days but decided that they make too many holes and are too hard to remove and the tool marks the surface of the wood anyhow. Staples work OK when you only need one - but where there is more tension and you need more staples it is a real botch. And the staple holes are always really visible and randomly placed

So we have been using flat headed nails - fairly fine but about 2" long with a bit of "electrician's spagetti" threaded onto the nail - it is a plastic tube that can be cut into short lengths and threaded on the nails. It is soft enough to not dent the timber badly and holds the flat head of the nail off the surface.

Once filled the nail holes are not very noticeable at all and if neatly lined up don't detract at all. The filler has to approximate the colour of the timber - so a bit of really fine wood dust in the mix or use the bote cote filler powder that is made the approx colour of cedar.

Though if you use paulownia you will need a lighter colour filler - it is now a lot cheaper than most cedar supplies and the quality is much more consistent (and it is lighter) - there is info on my FAQ (below)

Some people work out jigs etc so you don't need nails or anything - but I've found that most of these systems reduce the number of planks you can whack on in a session.

If you do want to go ahead with staples - plastic staples are all the rage at the moment - you can get them wood coloured and sand them off rather than remove them.

And the trick with removing staples was to use some of that blue or yellow plastic strapping used to hold packages together when they are being freighted. Just hold the tape on the surface and staple through it. When you want to remove all the staples grab the tape at one end and pull it up - it will either pull the staples out or pull one side of them out so you can grab them with a pair of pliers.

You might find some info in the rather good thread on this forum about building the Redbird Canoe.

Also you might find some stuff in the canoe sections in my recently updated FAQ
http://www.storerboatplans.com/Faq/faqindex.html

MIK

Where do you get those plastic staples in Australia?

Good question.

My guess is if you ask in some of the more woodworking oriented parts of this forum you'll be inundated with replies.

MIK