I truly appreciate the time and thought you are putting into this thread, Rob. The highest and best use of this forum is to learn from each others' successes and failures to advance the art and science of boatbuilding, and I salute you and the other pros who stop in here.

As a professional boatbuilder you look at the process through a different pair of eyes. Get it started, get it done, cash the check, get on to the next. Most of us are hobbyists, and derive pleasure from the process of building as well as the pride of the end result. Even if methods are not the most efficient. For some the journey IS the destination.

Boatbuilders tend to be fiercely independent. We are at the mercy in our lives of so much that we cannot control, so much chaos, that there is pleasure in retiring to the shop and imposing some order in that small corner of the universe. There is joy in making all the decisions about a project, unemcumbered by budget committees, design review, cost/benefit analyses, supervisory bungling and "suggestions" from Legal. Everybody has different constraints, different taste, and different expectations, so methods and results can be expected to vary.Some of the most longlasting lessons come from learning what not to do, but there is no chapter on that in any of my references. It seems that solving one problem sometimes leads to 2 more, and it takes a lot of boats to get to your level of understanding of the process. I suspect that you made your share of mistakes along the way.

I read with interest that you use staples on your hulls, rather than the hot
glue method. From your earlier post I inferred that there was a problem with my choice of hot glue or technique on the hull, but perhaps that is not the case? Does this method not work for you either, or are the staples just plain faster? If the choice is staple holes or dithering, I choose to dither. Extra time does not matter to me. When it's all done and people go "ooh" and "aah" nobody will care how long it took.

An old coach once told me that a mistake is not a mistake if you do it on purpose. Put another way, you need to know what the rules are so you can break them properly. We all bring different experiences and skill sets to the table, and occasionally one of us will come up with a good idea. Even a blind pig will occasionally find a truffle.

I share your minimalist attitude about boat decoration, and would not go over the top on my own kayak. But my wife chose this boat and the design as well, so to that extent this is commission work. She is a quilter and loves Celtic knotwork, so that is by God what she will get. Below is the quilt pattern
that I will adapt to the inlay.

Thanks again for your thoughts.

BTW, building a boat is not a big project. My biggest was the total interior repaint and exterior fluid-applied elastomeric waterproof coating on a 7-story hotel, when I owned a painting company 15 years ago. Then there was the epoxy pressure injection of all the joints in roof bow trusses in 2 Air Force hangars. And the 400,00 sq. ft. of epoxy floors in a manufacturing plant. Or painting the roof of the generator gallery at Bonneville Dam, 110 feet above the deck. We are not all bozos on this bus, and compared to those nightmares, building a kayak is like sleepwalking. Well, I have to get back to dithering.