> Ray,

My wife Sarah and I teach woodworking to grades 8 thur 12. Our 8 yh. grade class builds kayaks using the technicqes in George Putz's book.

We make a boat that is a good bit wider then shown in the books ,but for a kid with no kayak paddling experiance its eaiser to use.

We have built the 17 1/2' foot boat in Georges book. It is a very sleek and shallow boat, kids with no experiance might have trouble keeping it up right, but its a great boat.

We get our materials from a large wholesale lumber company , who always has bundles of thick and thin wood to give away . We use popular,. it takes the bends well and isn't to heavy.

For fastners we use commen 1"-- 1 1/4"--1 5/8" drywall screws. And Elmers Carpenters glue.

The covering is 10 oz. canvas stapled on with 1/4" staples. We paint the hulls with 2 coats of exterior oil base white paint, for the the collor coats we use exterior latex paint ,we can get more colors in it and sense the boats don't set in the water for days we have had good luck with it. If you want a real armor coat the go to an oil base paint made for boats.

We also seal the frame work with exterior urethane or spar varnish.

There are a lot of staples to shoot, if you have a air stapler its a brezze . We build 8 boats a year, and use electric staplers from Stanley their safer with the young kids.

Hope I have helped with your quest.