: Bill,

: I'm sure you've discovered the line used over and over with some variation in
: Putz's book that goes like, "This is an area where you can make your
: own design decision." These statements are driving me crazy!

Yep! Been there. Been dealing with that :-) I'm taking him at his word and improvising.

: On the trestle I went for 4 braces between each form. The forth brace will be
: installed once the kayak is removed from the forms. The books bracing
: looks nice in the illustrations but I just don't think it’s logical.

This sounds exactly like what I did. The spacing was close to 7", so that's what I used. I actually did this by accident (e.g. do first - read directions later :-), but it worked out well. I just worked around the forms. It will leave gaps, but Putz does do it this way.

: One thing I haven’t done yet is figured out what to do with the stern and bow.

I just put a couple on each end. Seemed to fit well. See image below. Hmmm. Nice external SB too :-)