: I'm sold on the strongback now as I see there is a technical reason. My next
: dilema is: After constructing and glassing the hull could I then glue in a
: sheer clamp in sections so as not to distort the shape. Hard chined boats
: have a relatively sharper hull to deck transition angle and I envisage
: difficulties taping the inside join. A sheer clamp for gluing the deck to
: the hull seems practical. As well, it is handy to have a sheer to screw
: fittings into. Any opinions

That is how the CLC Arctic Hawk kit goes together,,first the hull is developed/glued THEN the sheerclamp made of two pieces of 4mm ply strips is added on. There's a huge difference between pre-gluing a 3/4"x1" piece of Cypress onto 4mm ply and bending THAT compared to just bending 4mm ply and adding the sheerclamp. Look inside a Betsy Bay kayak sometime,,I think it's a smooth fillet between deck/hullsides, maybe there's a sheerclamp under there,,I don't know but it didn't look like it in the cockpit. Either way I wouldn't look to mounting deck hardware in the sheerclamp as a reason to use a wide sheerclamp. CLC bounced around sheerclamp dimensions as a way to reduce weight on different models (MC13, WR162/4)but in order to accomodate ring nails coming from different angels AND #10x1" wood screws you pretty much have to have a 3/4" wide sheerclamp,,which give you more wood than structurally necessary for bonding the deck/hull,,,especially if deck glass is in the picture. In other words by sticking to using ring nails and putting deck hardware into the sheerclamps (and some still miss) the kayak ends up carrying around unnecessary weight in a thick sheerclamp . This is a roundabout way of saying you might consider mounting deck hardware through the deck like nearly every other kayak. CLC got stuck on mounting bronze hardware on sheerclamps because it's "boaty",,and because the unglassed 3,4mm decks would require glass to handle the loads. If you tape the deck on during gluing, use through deck hardware on a glassed deck you can make the sheerclamp much narrower.
The A.Hawk kit only uses a 12mm total gluing surface with a roundover reducing that to 8mm I wonder if you could put in a triangular piece of 1/2"x3/4"(bring the sheer clamp down to 1/2"x1/2" at the ends) sheerclamp to the glued up hull. I don't think you're really going to distort the hull shape adding a narrow sheerclamp after the hull is glued.