by DanaDCole on Wed Jun 10, 2015 11:20 am
I also did some pre-bending with a heat gun. Worked pretty well, but what enabled me to easily get those last few inches down tight at the bow was to run a tie-down strap (actually two hooked together) from the rub-strip section at the bow all the way back and across the transom, and hooking it to the other end of the same strip. This made things really easy once I got the strap in place (a lot easier with someone to help). It also helps to make sure the very end of the strip is down tight at the stern.
I did the first couple strips before a neighbor came up with the strap idea, and I was having to put a lot of extra screw holes in the last few inches at the bow. Even with deck screws, there was so much pressure that some of them stripped out the wood. Looked messy and the strip was still between 1/16 and 1/8" away at the very end--screws too close to the end might have split the wood and might not have been able to pull it in anyway. I wish I had thought of the strap idea and used it all the way through--would have worked perfectly and not have needed all those extra screws (a few of which broke off when I tried to remove them. (It turned out that the strip was twisted a little at the end so was touching at the bottom, so I just had to do some filling with thickened epoxy. Not sure the straps would have been able to flatten out that twist, but maybe they would.)
I suppose if you are really good at heat bending, and/or have a steam box, you could get a perfect match for that curve, but why bother when the strap method works so well, and easily. Just do some pre-bending with a heat gun to take some of the strain off. You'll be thrilled to see how easily the tie-down straps pull the rub-strip right up to the hull.