: So, I have progressed on the Sea Kayaker Cunningham S&G I was talking about a
: couple weeks ago, and have the four hull panels wired together in the
: cradles. Everything is looking good, true and fair except for a small
: concave area on the keel line just astern of the midships temporary
: bulkhead. Right about under where thighs will be. I suppose this was
: caused by taking a bit too much off during planing the edges of the
: panels, or maybe my lofting wasn't accurate in that area.

: The concave area is about a foot long, and "dips" upward (I wired
: the panels in the cradels right side up) from the rest of the keel by
: about 1/4-1/2 inch. Looks like about a 16th to an eigth inch gap in the
: panels there.

: Since everything else is wired up tight, my instinct is to try to shim this
: area fair with the rest of the hull with a long wedge or series of shorter
: wedges which would then be trimmed flush and filled with thickened epoxy.

: Or should I unwire and try to plane or sand the adjacent areas out a bit and
: pull it back together? I am afraid that might make it worse. I don't think
: it will affect the paddling much if I leave it alone. I could probably
: fair it out from the outside once I lay wear strips on the hull.

: What does the collective say?

: BTW, I had trouble finding 18gauge copper wire around here. I did find a 270
: foot spool of .22 caliber (?) steel floral wire for ~$3 at a hobby shop,
: and it has just worked great so far. In higher stress areas at bow and
: stern, I had to double and sometimes triple fold the wire, but no problem,
: there's plenty of it.

Remove a wire if nearby and just push the dip into place with a stick or
sticks from below. Prop the sticks in place, then fill the gap between the panels
with thickened epoxy.

All the best,
Rob Macks