I joined the deck and hull, and despite constant fitting during glassing, I ended up with a bit of an offset that I planed down and also filled some gaps with dhukie schmutz. It looks really good, so I'm not going to mess with it. I came up with an idea that I really don't have time to try, but would like to share. What if you joined the deck and hull, taped the inside seam, and then took a router with a 1/4" bit and routed a groove along the outside seam between the deck and hull. The depth would be set around 1/8". Then you would glue in a 1/4" spline, and would plane and sand the spline to surface level. VIOLA!- you now have an invisible splined joint. You could also make an accent stripe by using a contrasting wood. You still would have to tape the seam, but it would look much better, and should be a very strong joint. I'm afraid I don't have enough matching strips to do it, as I nearly ran out building the kayak as it is. I thought I would share the idea and see what you folks think. In order to guide the router you could tack a fairing batten down the hull and use a router with a guide bearing. That should make the job easy. Also if you were using a contrasting wood you could stop the router short and have a rounded end to your stripe, kinda like the skunk stripe on the back of a Fender Strat. With the fiberglass tape as added security you would have a very strong joint.

Just a thought,

Malcolm