Spidey,

I appreciate the recommendations on the hot-glue and tape clamps. So far, I've been able to get away with mostly hot-glue, even on the sheer strips. But that's because I built a feature-strip at the sheer out of two 1/4" wide and one 1/8" wide strip, each bent and glued individually. There was very little effort needed to bend each piece. The hot-glue held just fine as I was adding subsequent strips. Also, I was using the yellow wood glue sticks.

I'll be using the inlay technique described on Vaclav's site, which really requires the entire field to be held in place (because I'll be cutting slots through it). So, I'm hot gluing all the way up.

I'll have a couple early progress photos soon.

Ross

: Hi Ross;

: Welcome to the club! A few things I discovered when building my first kayak
: include (most important first): (1) Really attach the sheer
: strips firmly. My next effort will find me screwing the sheer strips to
: the forms and plugging the holes afterward with wood plugs. These are the
: most important strips in my opinion.

: (2) Don't worry about knocking the forms out - A bigger problem will be
: generating hot glue joints that hold up. I stopped using hot glue
: altogether when I clamped the sheer strips in place and simply let every
: new strip reference to these and the forms. The structure will hold itself
: in place against the forms with no problem if you FIRMLY secure the sheer
: strips. Trust me on this one.

: (3) Tape is where it's at - The best clamp ever devised. I preferred duck
: tape (the good stuff that doesn't leave residue), but I used the fiber
: packing tape when I needed to really clamp an area. You'll run into (i.e.)
: the end of a tapered strip, and it just doesn't want to sit in position
: flush with the hull (or deck) . . . I used short pieces of strip, perhaps
: 3/4" long, covered with duck tape so it wouldn't get glued in
: position. I would stand it edgewise, over the raised area, and pull fiber
: strapping tape down hard over the small block. It's amazing how much
: pressure that will maintain until the glue has set. Seconds to implement,
: a quick pull to release it. Love the stuff . . .

: (4) Did I mention, Affix the sheer strips firmly?

: Best of Luck, Spidey