plastic staples

[Whiffle English]

for a cold molding project, I am looking for a source for plastic staples. I don't want to spend hours and hours pulling metel staples out of my boat, only to have my plane blade find the ones I missed. any help will be appreciated!

[Wiley Baggins]

Utility Composites Inc. - Raptor Division
2704 A Meister Pl.
Round Rock, TX USA 78664

Phone: (512) 255-8525, (800) 460-6933
Fax: (512) 255-8709
Email: info@raptornails.com

Sales Contact: Nancy Showers, nas@raptornails.com
Engineering Contact: Pam Tucker, psst@raptornails.com

Manufacturer

Plastic composite nails and staples.

raptornails.com (http://raptornails.com)

[GregH]

Here's a suggestion if you decide not to use the plastic staples- I did this using metal staples to cold mold an Ian Oughtred Acorn Skiff: Drive the metals ones through strips of plastic strapping tape, the kind that's being used a lot today instead of the metal banding. I got mine from a friend in the warehousing business. When the epoxy has set, pull up the tape, and MOST of the staples will come right out. You will still need to to use pliers to remove some of those that bend, or pull throught the tape, but if sure beats digging all of them out!

[Graham Knight]

I'll second GregH's suggestion, I'm building an Oughtred skiff right now and am using this method, 15mm staples through two layers of 6mm Gaboon ply into a scrap backing pad, they pull right out when you pull the strapping. My son works for a packing company and got me a whole roll of the stuff.
The only place I had a problem was along the lower edge of the garboards, where the staples are going into the Oak keelson, very few of them pulled out but most came out OK with a claw hammer, using a pad of cardboard under the hammer to avoid marking the wood.

[Bruce Hooke]

The bummer with the plastic staples is that you also have to buy the gun that shoots the plastic staples, because the staples do not fit in a standard gun.

If you decide to go the plastic strapping route and don't have convenient contacts in the shipping business you can also get rolls of the plastic strapping from shipping supplies dealers and from places like McMaster-Carr...

[John Meachen]

While the use of plastic staples will prolong the life of your edge tools,what happens when one of them goes into the mould?I would expect that after a number of layers,it would be all too easy to have stapled the hull in place.

[Bruce Hooke]

According to the workshop I went to at the WoodenBoat show last weekend, plastic staples are fairly brittle and if they do go through into the mold a bit of prying will easily break them. Obviously it would be as well to make sure there are not lots and lots of them going into the mold, but it sounds like a few SHOULD not be a problem...

[Whiffle English]

many thanks for the thoughtful and helpful replies. As it happens, I think we are going to use the raptor product. I'll give a report after we've shot a few staples!