: I intend to use redwood strips for the hull of a Guillemot 17 kayak. How much
: more trouble can I expect to have bending the redwood strips into place
: when compared to Western Red Cedar?

: Does anyone have an opinion?

: Thanks,

: Rich

I just finished making the oystercatcher using mostly red wood. The only thing i could add is I had problems stapling into the redwood. Possibly i have a cheep stapler and a better model would have worked. I could not get the staples to go through the redwood and into the forms. I ended up using duct tape and thin woodscrews to pull the wood down to the forms, particulary in hard bends. But all in all the well chosen holes for wood screws actually looks better than the staple marks do on my other Kayaks. I used the screw holes very sparingly, probably no more than 30 or 40 total for the boat. What i did was lay down a series of strips then i would use a 5" to 10" scrap piece of redwood strip. I Screwed one end of the scrap strip through the hull at the lower end portion of the newly layed strips, the other end of the 10" scrap piece would extend on the same form past the last strip i layed. I placed a screw in the upper end of the 10" strip and secured it to the form above where the last strip was layed. this allowed me to hold 5 or more strips down to the forms with only one hole through the hull. I did not place screws on every form, I used them only where the strips needed to be pulled down the most. This naturally pulled the wood to the forms in the other areas. I used Duct tape to keep the strips tight together. I also just secured the last strip i layed that day by using a scrap 1" strip and screwing it to the forms just above the last strip. After the glew dried the 1" pieces were removed and the strips stayed in contact with the forms (Most of the time).

Mark