Honorable......:D

Well.......I'm not sure I fit in the Honorable category and if so not any more so then any other sawdust pocketed boat builder prone to leave his wife and children at the dinner table to hide out in his shop to wavier the thin line between singing too and cussing at a bunch of long cedar tooth picks.

Still I'll weigh in here:
First my suggestion is Eric, kick the blower unless you have too have one. I am back on room air again, kicked the pipe. That was just a work around not good practice. It allowed me to be in the shop when other wise I couldn't be there. Yeah I am still doing a few hits of albuterol to stay in the shop, but... Room air and shop air, and outdoors is part of what is wonderful in this hobby. Before you turn out the lights in your shop space tonight, take a deep whiff... take it from someone who has been there and back. As I have gotten my taste buds back, I am finding I'm getting smells again. Did ya ever walk into a specialty wood shop and take a whiff....Don't take the smell of cedar, mahogany, basswood or black walnut mingling with sharpening oil, and the smell of steel for granted. Don't protect yourself from what is a pleasure.
The smell of a boat shop is part of the fun.

Yeah wearing a cartridge filter mask using dust systems and body isolation practices, gloves and tyvec etc in certian situations makes sense. But don't take the senses out of boat building. Trust me to thumb raw grain with real fingers, to figure out which way it draws moisture and to figure out where hidden grain is going to go,....is both a skill and a very real simple pleasure. To smell a boat fresh on the forms, with all the aromatic woods, grindings etc. wow when I got that back.... I lost my creativity when I lost my connection to the wood. Shops are a temple all there own don't protect yourself from the sensations that go with your chosen mediums. Let your senses stay in tune with what is at its root a very primal pass time.

Same goes for construction methods. Baot building is many things to many people. For some its is just a technical act that is to make a transportation vehical, to go from pointA to point B over water. For others it is an act of creativity approaching near spiritual expression. (the chior sings allaluia)
Both are right.

Having said that it takes the same amount of time to build a beautiful boat as it does an ugly boat. I have also discovered for my sellf what others have told me before. I takes the same amount of time to build a stitch and glue as it does a stripper.....Jig and all.

I am building a hybrid now, just to see what it was all about. To my mind it was all the headache with out any of the creativity. Yeah was able to get those hard radius chines, but I was able to pad extra strips in on a stripper and sand the same thing in last year. So it was wash. S/G has its place and many folks enjoy the process. SO I'm not bashing the method. Jsut talking about what I like.

What I am trying to say is if you want to look of strip then a gentle suggestion would be strip away. Its the same time invested. If your thinking the look your already thinking creativly. But I think your under the illusion that their is a short cut to it. I have been teaching boat building to the interested few on and off for years. Lots of folks just want the boat fast. Good enough. Some want a beautiful boat fast.... and try every short cut. Sad it takes the same time and they cut them selves out of the creative. The first lesson seems to be to get folks to slow down and that only happens when they start enjoying the process.

Several years ago there was a post series in which we talked about weather we talked to our boats. The history of kayak building is grounded in the Inuit artistic tradition. When I lived in Greenland it was still the practice for the artists to talk to piece of wood ivory or Baleen and ask what was inside it.... We may not be of that culture, butthe project sort of takes you to the same place. Being in relationship with one's unfinished boat is part of the project. A lot of that is in the many subtle sensations that go with touching a boat.

A bit of personal truth. Did ya notice that recently there wasn't much creativity in my posts. It was like something broke. Like writers block I could do technique but I couldn't find the creative zone. I couldn't figure out what it was. I couldn't see things in the wood I wanted to make. I just knew how to make boat.... I couldn't figure out what was wrong. My lack of creativity was driving Rick and my wife nuts. I had become a technition. It came back all of a sudden, It didn't start to come back until I could smell the wood and steel, touch it feel it, not be afraid that the wood would hurt me. When I could stay and putter and consider. Now I have more ideas then time to build 'em. Simple truth is the zeist of the shop and my boats un finished talsk back....I jsut never knew how.

Eric, my suggestions would be give into your creativity. It wants to build something beautiful. Give your creativiity the time to make the dream a reality. not a faux but the real thing. Then enjoy the process of experimenting and the feeling of gaining mastery. Play with the grain, touch the wood, enjoy smells, Learn to enjoy the feel of a plane in you hands, enjoy "ALL" the simple sensory pleasures of being a boatwright.

If you do that I am guesing you'll find you have the time and enjoy the time to build what your creative mind is seeing.

Eric, Jig building is part of the fun. Lining out a boat is dreamscaping. Its where you start to see, what is happening. If its a miserable process, something is wrong with how your doing it. I have seen this before too. People wantthe boat , but don't really want the boat building, because its mind numbing repetitious stuff. Rather then treat the symptoms they give into the horor of boredom. Eric, Turn on the boom box with what ever music brings you to creative, wait for a sunny day. HAng up a rigid tool calander. What ever makes jig building fun. For me its a social thing. I invite people in we get 3 or 4 boat builders going and we work together. We have open houses in the shop. People stop by. At other times when its just me and the boat, its bluegrass, sassfrasc tea and an owl stopping bye. If the process isn't enjoyable then make it so. It takes about 250 hours to build a boat. If they aren't enjoyable why invest in the hobby.

Same with stripping. YEah I guess it could be said its just mindless whittling.... BUt if your doing it in the creative zone, smelling the wood, making your beautiful dream come true..... and talking with friends, working hte plane to the rythm of pink floyd.......IT becomes really fun.

Eric I have a recommendation. Get yourself a boat building buddy. It makes the time go down easier. Work in shorter time frames. Buy a bom box When it gets boring walk away. ITs supposed to be fun, not just a chore. DO what ever brings you to the zen of it. See da boat , feel da boat, be da boat LOL

I'll close with this. It is a favorite line I haven't quoted in a whileThere are many sailors who insist that wooden boats have a soul; that unlike their mass-produced sisters, they are truly living beings. For the uninitiated , it is easy to be skepticla of such conceits, and dismiss them as mere romantic notions . Both romance is not infatuation; it is the enguagement of heart and mind , and there are few contrivances as utterly enguaging as a boats made of wood. There is something profoundly important in fashioning in fashioning timbers and planks for yactchs an boats something very spiritual in the shaping of material. Perhaps it has to do with ancient things ; a blending of ancient skills with an ancient resource Or perhaps it hs to do with the honor of transforming something so grand and graceful as a tree into something so lithe and lovely as a boat. Certianly there are few opportunites in life these days to blend art science , and the natural world in so dramtic a fashion

: Has any honourable kayakeur in this club tried to cover a stich'n'glue's deck
: panel(s) with thin decorative stripping instead of going into the tiresome
: jig of constructing the deck from real-thikness strips?
: Will those thin strips keep sticking to the ply deck panels?
: This looks like cabinet-making...meaning a long, specific process, and many
: clamps?

: Another topic: I work wearing a respiratory mask (dreadful stuff with two
: filters, I'll post you a pic for Halloween) and glasses, that seem to be
: doing the job.
: So, I don't use the vac, in spite of instructions : is this a big mistake?
: I mean, considering I'm no real specialist like Nick or Russ, only a
: part-time builder?
: I just found the connecting pipe a hindrance, the noise is such you think the
: cops are gonna crash in, etc.

: Many splashes

: Eric