17 May 24:
Some view the caulking of seams with cotton as a Black Art, but really it is more akin to the Goldilocks childrens story. Wood and cotton swell and shrink as moisture levels increase and decrease, with age and species of wood being additional factors. Also plank thickness comes into play, leading to the questions of how much cotton do I put into a seam, and what tools do I use? Too much cotton can crush the edges of a plank when the plank swells or cause planks to move and break fasteners and frames. Not enough cotton and the seam will leak. Also pounding cotton into the seam of a lightly built boat can cause damage. We need just the right amount of cotton, good tools to caulk a seam and just the right touch.
So we need an appropriate size edge tool and possibly a hammer. The edge tool, like the purpose designed caulking iron below, should fit snug in the seam, and there are different thickness irons that are just right. To tap the cotton into the seam with an iron, a caulking hammer can be used, but a lot of smart folks mention that they like using a smaller mallet. Today we found this little mallet at our local consignment shop and it does a fine job with an iron on these small seams.
One other tip, you can see that we have rolled the cotton strand a bit and tucked the cotton into the seam every inch or so. By doing this the cotton goes into the seam easier than if it was one long ball of fluff, and when the seam gets a little wider or tighter, we can vary whether we tuck in just the right amount of more or less content.
Goldilocks was picky, and we are too when it comes to caulking plank seams.
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