: ***

: Bobby,

: Wood folders .... allow a closer match of arctic designs than you can
: get from alu tubing, as it's tough to make a sweptup bow (or stern)
: without deep gunwales and additional stanchions,

Isn't it presumably possible to curve the aluminum stringers enough to allow the bow upsweep and use skin tension to maintain a positive upward curve (as opposed to a bad downward curve!)?

: and curbing the fore
: deckridge from top of the coaming or masik, down to fore deck level then
: up to the top of the bow stem piece! Ash tree's amazing bendability lets
: us do that.
: Tom is a mastermind, but he builds Aleut-type iqyaxes (which the Russian
: imperialists unappropriately called baidarkas ;-} meaning small barks)
: that are generally flush-decked.

Having a peaked deck as with a traditional iqyax can be as simple as adding a 6th stringer at the deck.

Many Inuit designs are flush-decked...except for the masik/foredeck stringer areas.

I'm working on a folding Greenland kayak with flat decks (I probably will have 2 foredeck stringers between masik and footbrace frame) and 5 stringers--gunnels, chines, and keelson.

: On the other hand, alu tubes are lighter to portage, don't have to be
: varnished and can be assembled quite nicely through inner tubes.

And lend themselves _very_ well to the use of plastic frames.

I've wanted to build a folder for several years now, but shied away from the complexity of wood folder joints. (not that I couldn't do it...just didn't think it worth the time).

My first incarnation is sort of a prototype. Never having built a traditional SOF (perhaps I should have first), or any truely low-volume kayak, I'm using all scrap materials to build this first folder. After I get it completed and launched, I'll take what I've learned from it and build one exactly the size and shape I want.