: Just finished putting on the seal coat and thought I would write a few
: observations from my point of view, because so many
: people have shared so much here.

It's interesting to hear your description of your seal coat process. I’ve done this so often I don't even think about it. Yes, the wood will absorb resin at different rates depending on grain. I ignore this. The idea is to get a coat on the wood and let it absorb it without having to pass through the cloth and struggle with the cloth to get a drink of resin. Once the cloth is wet-out there will be enough resin passing through the cloth to wet the wood in those areas which absorbed more resin in the sealer coat.

The advantage in using the sealer coat method is that it separates the struggle of the wood and cloth in their efforts to get all the resin they need and to expel and displace air. Sealing the wood in one step and then wetting-out the cloth in another separate step makes it easier to create a bubble free glass lay-up that is very transparent.

I don’t bother trying to add more resin to the patches of wood that absorb resin faster because there is no way to keep from adding too much resin to the areas with a filled wet surface. If you try to add resin to the surface you will just create pools or sags of resin. The more you fuss and play with small areas of your boat the less uniform your coatings will be. And the less uniform your coatings then you must work more to sand uneven spots and the more you sand uneven spots the more irregular your surface will become.

The more you have to work on uneven spots on your boat the less fair your surfaces will be.

This takes me back to my training as a sculptor. Every thing I did was in learning how to create uniform surfaces. It is a lot of work making a smooth surface from a pile of clay or wax.

This is why Stitch and Glue kayaks are so easy. You have big panels of plywood and you take advantage of their stiff resiliency to make a smooth surface with no effort at all. Yes, they are limited in the complexity of the surface they can create, but the plywood panels create the smooth surface and you only have to focus work on the joints.

With strip building you take advantage of the natural property of the thin wood strips to create a smooth curve WITH a very small flat surface. If you align these strip edges you will be close to a smooth surface from the start of your smoothing process.

The less you have to focus on irregularities in the surface the more uniform your surface will be.

The one point I cannot emphasize enough is to TAKE THE TIME to place and align your strips correctly. If your strips are not aligned edge to edge, if they do not make contact with the stations and remain in contact with the stations and stems than EVERY THING YOU DO FROM THEN ON WILL BE IMPACTED NEGATIVELY. It will be harder to fair, harder to glass. You won’t know if your hull is too thin in some spots because you had to sand a lot to level the surface. So, you might leave a rough surface on the inside of the hull and have gaps in your glass which will weaken your hull and on and on and all kinds of shit happens

I breaks my heart to see all the effort some of you guys are putting out to do all kinds of elaborate stapless methods that only allow a couple strips a day to be added, but most of all I see hulls that look more like a staircase rather than a smooth surface.

If you would take the time to fit and align your strips every step down the road will be SO MUCH EASIER!

Nick has done all his boat using staples. I just realized this. I never notice the staple holes in his boats. The only person who notices staple holes is you when you’re building the boat. You’re three inches away from the hull and those holes look huge! But get the boat out of the shop and on the water and you’ll never see them again.

I wish you guys the best. I want you to have an easy time of it. So you’ll be addicted to boat building like me and Nick and George and build all our designs.

Take the time to fit those strips, OVER Every other effort you make. This will pay off the most.

All the best,
Rob