"Knot Likely" -- Maroske Fittings

Click on the photos for a larger, uncropped version

I'm an advocate of deck lines on a kayak. On the Return, I used an adaptaion of Joe Greenley's soft padeyes. I'm very pleased with how they look and how they function. The one disadvantage is that they need to be removed when the deck is refinished. This time, I decided to use an adaptation of the method first documented by Gerald Maroske from Germany. As usual, I made a few changes!

I wanted to use reinforced holes to insure that the deck line would not wear through an epoxy seal coat and allow water to seep into the wood. In addition, I wanted the holes drilled at an angle to the deck rather than perpendicular. This required scrounging into the tool box for a drill bit from a past life.

The Blair 1/2 inch hole saw had a fairly long spring loaded center pin. This allowed me to start the hole on an angle. After drilling as deep as the tool would allow (it was designed for use with sheet metal), I removed a wedge of wood from each location with a small chisel.

I finished the initial hole with a 1/2 inch Forstner bit. This bit would cut through the deck without tearing as it passed through the back side. Because I didn't want too tight a bend in the fitting, I placed the center line of the holes 2 inches apart rather than the closer dimension that Gerald used in his documentation.

Grey tape covered the outside of the resulting holes. I then mixed up some resin stiffened with wood flour and tinted with laser printer toner. This mixture was used to fill the holes from the underside of the deck. This is one of those projects that is MUCH easier to do before the deck goes on! (Note: I use this same drill/fill/drill process whenever I need a hole through the wood core.)

After the epoxy in the filled holes cures, the center was drilled with a 3/8" brad point bit. I wanted to use a Forstner bit, but I couldn't find anyone who had a 3/8" bit in that style. A length of surgical tubing is used as the mold for the fitting. I was amazed how difficult it was to find, but finally found one drug store with a wide variety in stock. I knew I wanted 3/8" O.D., but needed an I.D. that would match up with some cording, or other removable filler. I found some with a 3/32" I.D. which I filled with electrical wire.

August 2, 2003: I've been writing this page as the fittings cure. It's time to quit writing and see if I can pull the tubing out of the fittings! I'll add the rest of the photos and update this page one of these days!

September 3, 2003: "One of these days" has come, and the opportunities to overcome adversity were abundant! I guess I'll start by going back and adding the pictures of the buildup.

Once the tubing was in place, I put several layers of cloth under the tube to resist pulling the fitting through the deck. This material was wet out, and then a large fillet of thickened epoxy was formed to completely enclose the tube.

Several pieces of bias cut material were placed over the fillet, and then wet out, using care to remove all bubbles. I found it very easy to do all of these steps before anything cured. It seemed to me that it made it easier to ensure the cloth laid down nicely.

Ain't it purty? This is how it actually looked while I was so glibly writing the first section of this page.

The first fitting I tried to clear was somewhat like I expected. The wire was very difficult to pull out of the tubing - hadn't expected that. I grabbed an exposed end of the tubing with a pair of pliers and began pulling - nice steady pressure. As the muscles in my arm started knotting and cramping, and the deck seemed to shrink noticably, the tubing finally popped out and smacked me in the hand, hard! Let's see, I have five more to go. This is fun isn't it??

To make a long story short, the tubing in the other five fittings all broke off inside the fittings, leaving a chunk that I couldn't remove. A friend recommended "better living through chemistry" and suggested that lighter fluid would melt the surgical tubing and make it easy to remove. Last time I'll believe him! I ended up cutting the tops off of five fittings to extract the tubing. Even then (by now two frustrating weeks had gone by while I struggled with admitting my problem to the folks on the KBBB - I never did!) it was difficult to get the tubing out.

It was actually quite easy to repair the opened fittings. People that don't read this page will never know! Next time (yes, there will be a next time) I'll use thinner wall tubing rather than the thick wall material I used. I'm also toying with using some paste wax on the tubing - we'll see.