: Rob, et. al.,

: Your posts and your comments are very valuable to a first time
: builder like myself. I was thinking about posting a compilation
: of first time builder mistakes that I have made and this one
: tops the list.

: My kayak is not completely stripped yet, but I know that I am
: having some problems with strips of unequal thickness. I bought
: my wood over a period of about a month and made my strips
: shortly after buying each batch of wood stock. I used the same
: tablesaw, blade, hold-downs and fence set-up each time and
: measured the thickness of the strips with a gauge.

: My strips vary from about 0.22 to say 0.27 inches in thickness.
: About 1/20 of an inch! But this turned out to be huge in the
: scheme of things for a strip kayak. This strips are difficult to
: edge align, be they B/C or cut with a 5 degree bevel (I and
: using both in different areas of the hull and deck).

: As you mentioned, it is very obvious to me that I will have a lot
: of planing, sanding, fairing work to get a smooth kayak shape.
: Where I have used B/C, this process results in gaps appearing
: between the strips that ultimately I will need to fill. Morale
: of the story, if I had simply waited and cut all of my strips at
: once, then the difference in thickness would have been much
: smaller and it would have saved me a lot of time.

: Live and learn, try not to repeat the same mistakes.

: Greg
Hi Greg,
Yep different guages mean plenty of thinking and "fun" ahead.
To recover, get into using a fairing board and say 60 grit paper.Random Orbital Sander is quite good,but you can loose a bit of weight doing it by hand.I use the first thing that comes to hand usually,but I've settled on some of that white semi flexible and hard packaging foam roughly a foot square x inch or two deep ,in your units?,so the pad bridges the "valleys".Be ruthless with the strokes, "cross hatching"at 45 degrees ish to see the new paper trail on the high areas as it were and use the idea of the low rising/setting of the sun or torch[if you must] to cast the shadows of the high areas onto the boat surface.I actually do use the sun 'cause I'm a romantic nut and kayak building, invariably ,gets me up before dawn...It's just more work, which, in the end will keep you honest. I know....Oh and ,I think, bead and cove is really not nessesesry like Rob says it's work for little gain if you can just get over the simple art of bevelling.Gap filling,I actully don't because the filler is so ugly.Slip in some wood.cheers.