All these decorative excrescences which detract or obfuscate the naturally glorious lines of a sea kayak are, in my opinion an abomination. Use your artistry to accentuate these lines; not overwhelm them.

>

> A: Steam them. If you don't have a steamer try wrapping the strip
> with a rap and pour boiling water on it. Let it rest a minute and
> try to bend it. If that doesn't give you the curves you want, go to
> plan B.

> B: Slice them into narrower strips. Instead of using one 1/4
> by 3/4 inch (6mm by 19 mm) strip, use 1/4 by 1/4 (6mm x 6mm) strips.
> They will be square in cross section and much more bendable in any
> direction you want them to twist. Use three strips side by side to
> equal the width of a single 3/4 inch (19mm) wide strip. (The math
> in metric measurement doesn't add up due to slight rounding errors,
> but the parts will fit fine.) If the bending is not so severe you
> could try using 1/4 x 3/8 inch (6 mm x 9 mm) strips. Then you would
> just need 2 strips to match the width of a regular 3/4 inch (19mm)
> wide single strip.

> For these narrow strips, bead and cove treatment is just a waste
> of wood in my opinion. I'd use straight edged material.

> If you are careful in ripping the stock, and keep pieces together,
> the seam between the re-assembled pieces will be unnoticeable.

> C: Why bend the wood at all? With a bandsaw you can resaw a nominal
> 1x8 plank into 2 pieces of wood that are 1/4 inch thick and 7.5 inches
> wide, (plus another piece of thinner scrap). You can cut fancy shapes
> out of this with a bandsaw or jig saw. Once the design is cut it should
> be very flexible and easy to apply. If you want wider designs than
> 7.5 inches, edge glue and piece the material together to get what
> ever width you want. Same idea if you are working with 1x6 stock,
> only you'll get a piece that is 5.5 inches wide, and have to do a
> bit more edge gluing to build up wider panels.

> An idea here: If the deck has got gentle bends, make up panels
> of light and dark wood. Stack them and cut out the design with a very
> thin saw blade. A scrollsaw would be ideal here. Now restack them
> so the light wood piece fits into the dark wood piece like pieces
> in a jigsaw puzzle. (You'll have two pairs of matching pieces. The
> dark wood will have a left and a right part that interlock. Same for
> the light wood piece. But the left part of the light wood will interlock
> with the right side of the dark wood panel, and vice versa.) For a
> symetrical design, put either the light, or the dark wood panels in
> the center of the deck (back to back with the straight side running
> down the center) and the interlocking, contrasting color wood panels
> on either side. Trim around them with contrasting strips.

> Depending on the design and the thickness of the scroll saw,
> jig saw or band saw blade you may get a slight gap between the panels.
> Use a little filler in the glue or epoxy.

> You can get bizarre with this, too. If you are using epoxy, adding
> a colorant can give a slight tinge of color to the glue joint. Plain
> black would simply accent the edge of the design. I know someone on
> this board would want to use green on the right side and red on the
> left, and put a halogen light inside the hull so that the glue joints
> would glow at night, and in the appropriate colors for running lights.
> The halogen lamp would be powered by the same battery that runs the
> refrigerator, CD player, solenoids for the hatch releases, and the
> heated paddle shaft.

> Best of luck with this.

> Paul Jacobson

>