: I posted a question last week about the difficulty of stripping (I'm a real
: kayak novice) the transition curves from hull to keel. One suggestion was
: to try steam bending - which seems entirely logical. As you can see from
: the pic It's the last 3' of the last three hull strips that will not twist
: sufficiently to conform to the stations - they are fine over the rest of
: their length.

: Should I try starting over by scarfing new tails (to be steam bent) onto
: those 3 strips either side?

: Presumably any glue should only be added AFTER the strips dry-out from
: steaming?

These are the tricks I use to make stripping the hull easy. You can use one or all on your area of difficulty. Just as people cut in deck patterns you can cut out and add in a special section of stripping in this area to deal with the problems you’re having. You could use contrasting wood color to make the area stand out. Take your problem area and make the solution a design feature.

First of all I’d suggest using 3/16” strips. They are easier to bend and align. I bead & cove the strips for my hull bottom using the 1/4” cutters and just centering the strips in the cut.

Second I’d suggest using northern white cedar for your hull bottom. Northern white cedar is much more flexible and is the ideal wood for steam / dry heat bending. You can use a heat gun to bend (any wood) the strip while in place and glue immediately.

I also use northern white cedar for my hull bottoms for safety reasons. NWC makes a light colored highly visible hull bottom.

If you have a tight curve to follow use 1/2” wide strips instead of 3/4”.

I use plywood stations which have much better holding power with staples or brads than particle board or MDF.

1” brads have much greater holding power than staples. You can apply a brad by hand in a few spots as needed. A small piece of scrap strip is laid on top and nailed through so later the scrap piece can be removed to leave the head of the brad above the hull surface for easy removal. Electric brad nailers are available to make nailing fast. You’ll find they have many uses on other projects too.

The problem with making strips conform to the stations, is that in difficult spots you wish you had more stations closer together to clamp/ staple to. I use only staples on the bottoms of my hulls. And I use hot glue tricks to help add holding power in tough spots. I hot glue short scrap pieces of strip perpendicular to the strips, behind or on top of the strips, to add clamping/contact points between stations, to make full length strips conform to the stations. Each new strip will be hot glued and clamped to these temporary strip scraps to align and hold the strip in place. Scrap pieces can also be hot glued under strips to prevent a strip end from diving below the hull surface.

I strip my hulls from the sheer up and from the keel down. Sometimes these two surfaces don’t to want align as they meet, especially near the stems. I’ll use a scrap strip of northern white cedar and hot glue and clamp it under the two surface edges to bring them into the same plain. Sometimes the cedar scrap has to be thinned to make it more flexible to follow the needed curve.

I hope some or all of these tips make your job easier.

Happy Holidays!

All the best,

Rob Macks
Laughing Loon CC&K
www.LaughingLoon.com