: Thank you Bob :)

: From what I've been reading so far, there could well be strong
: opinions here, which is fine by me.... I'm not looking for an
: answer, just experiences so I can get my own answer. I guess one
: thing I should have mentioned is that I would be routing my own
: b&c, which I understand could be a bit tricky by itself. for
: the glue, I found some great cheap cheap plastic squeeze bottles
: at the local dollar store... big cap with a small nozzle so easy
: to fill and easy to get a nice fine line of glue.

: Jason

I'm building my first kayak, a Great Auk. Like you I didn't care so much about the build time, rather I wanted a good result while trying to keep the cost down. I cut all my strips but did not use bead & cove. I also decided I did not want any staple holes. I'm glad I chose this route. I have not found beveling strips to be difficult at all. I takes a few strips to figure out a system and away you go. I ended up with very tight joints and didn't need any filler. One consideration is how much and what kind of design work you are planning. I chose to use a lot of pin striping which you have to bevel anyway. If you use b&c at transitions, remember that as you plane and sand down, your joint moves and stripe widths may grow or shrink. The Great Auk has a lot of flat deck so that made it easier for my decisions. I can see where it might be nice to have a trough to run glue in but applying it to the flat edge is not bad. I spread the glue out with a finger anyway to get good coverage, maybe something you wouldn't be able to do with b&c. For stapleless building, strapping & taping each strip every few inches is required and protecting the b&c edge is more difficult than a square edge. Just some thoughts.