The amount of weight you can save by making just the hull as a kevlar composite is not going to be huge. To get the maximum savings with kevlar, you really want to vaccum-bag, it is difficult to acheive a lot of weight savings with a hand layup. After a lot of work, you will save some weight, but not a lot.

It would take a little thought to make the male mold work well. You want the deck to match the size of the hull. You will need to figure the finished outer dimensions of the deck and hull and adjust the mold/forms to match.

It would be an interesting project.

> I'm not sure if you'll see this, as it has been a busy week on the
> bulletin board, but I wanted to pursue this thread. I have been thinking
> of trying to build a carbon/kevlar composite hull with a woodstrip deck,
> probably from your Expedition Single plans. I picked up a book on making
> Kevlar canoes from a male mold and thought I could borrow techniques from
> there and your book. My main reason for doing this would be the challenge
> of doing something a little different, but the other reason would be
> weight/strength considerations. Do you have any thoughts on whether you
> would save much weight this way (if at all)? How did you lay up the
> composite hulls you began?

> TIA, Will