Installing Glue-on Studs  
By Chuck Leinweber - Harper, Texas - USA

About a year ago, I showed David Nichols our nifty kayak foot braces. I thought they would be great for any of his flyfishing kayaks. He had them for a while but did not install them as there was not a good way to do that without drilling a hole in the side of his boats. Then we found out about glue-on studs. Those solved the kayak foot brace mounting problem and David knew exactly what to do with them. He was kind enough to take pictures of the installation and we present them here.

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This is what the glue-on studs look like. They are stainless steel with 1/4-20 threads.

 
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This story is about mounting Kayak foot braces but these studs have all sorts of applications.

 
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David says the average person will want to mount the middle of the base about 33 inches from the middle of the seat. This is highly individual, though so measure for your own installation.

 
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About 2/3rds of the travel should be available aft of the nominal position. You will need a spring clamp as shown or some other way to hold the base in the desired position.

 
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Mark the spots on the inside of the hull where the studs will mount, then sand all paint and varnish to expose epoxy or bare wood where the studs and fiberglass will go.

 
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Mix a little thickened epoxy and dab it where the perforated flanges of the glue-on studs will touch the plywood.

 
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With the studs in the holes of the base of the foot brace, but without the nuts, push the flanges into the thickened epoxy and secure until the epoxy has set.

 
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When the epoxy has set up it should look like this. Now remove the base from the studs.

 
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Find some scraps of fiberglass and make small patches with holds for the threaded part of the stud to go through and mix a little liquid epoxy.

 
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Use a brush to wet out the fiberglass patches being careful to get as little epoxy on the threads as possible.

 
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Once that epoxy sets up, the hard part is done. All that is left is to sand the epoxy and paint.

 
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Here is how it should look - you have a few inches of adjustment for taller folks and several inches for shorter people.

 
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Here is David's boat after the foot braces and seat have been mounted. David will write more on seats later.

David was so impressed with these Sea-Dog kayak foot braces that he has decided to recommend them to all builders of his kayaks. We like them too but I am really interested in hearing ideas about the glue-on studs. Can you think of a good use for them?

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