Plot

Gilligan's attempt to turn sap into maple syrup yields a substance that is stronger than glue. The castaways patch up the Minnow and prepare to go back out to sea.

The Professor (Russell Johnson) has found an outcropping of ferrous oxide on the Island to forge nails, but despite his best efforts, the he can't make nails to patch the holes in the Minnow. His first attempt shatters like glass while another attempt actually explodes. Meanwhile, Gilligan (Bob Denver) and Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) make pancakes for dinner and try finding a tree on the island to provide syrup to serve with the pancakes. Ginger is amazed that The Professor can do all the work with his hands being shaky. And feels his forehead suggesting that the heat was causing it. During dinner, however, everyone notices that the syrup that they collected when heated becomes springy and elastic. Ginger (Tina Louise) even comments its more elastic than some undergarments she's worn. The Professor meanwhile notices that went it finally hardens that its like permanent glue. He shocks the Howells by running from the table, dunking his plate with the hardened syrup to test it underwater. He reveals that the heated tree syrup can act like glue to repair the S.S. Minnow. The next morning, he and the Skipper test the glue and successfully use it to attach a board on the Minnow. They feel they can have the Minnow ready to set sail the following morning despite Gilligan and the Skipper getting themselves briefly covered in the glue and stuck to the hull of the Minnow. The Professor uses perfume from Mrs. Howell (Natalie Schafer) and Ginger to burn through the cement to free them. The following morning, the Skipper uses the glue to seal the entire hull of the Minnow, but remembering the incident with the glue, he sends Gilligan off on a fool's errand to look for icebergs. Wandering off to the lagoon, Gilligan feels useless but brightens up when he realizes it was he who found the glue that got them rescued. However, when he holds up the Professor's pancake plate, it finally slides apart, the emaciated glue having deteriorated into dust. He realizes the repairs to the Minnow won't hold for long and he rushes back to warn everyone. He arrives back at the beach just as Mr. Howell (Jim Backus) tries to re-launch the Minnow with a small ceremony. The Skipper doesn't believe him and proudly pats the boat to prove its as hard as a rock, but when he does, the glued boards pop off and planks start ricocheting everywhere with a rubbery composition. Gilligan climbs aboard trying to stop it as the craft peels itself down to the hull with Gilligan left holding just the captain's wheel in the empty skeleton which just collapses. Everyone is left dejected and disappointed. That night while sitting by the campfire, the Skipper apologizes for being blustery to Gilligan when he was just trying to help. He also confesses that if Gilligan hadn't warn them in time that they might have been out at sea when the Minnow collapsed. It's then that Gilligan tells him that he's sitting on a paintbrush covered in glue.