: Etienne- I love the looks of your method and plan to use it on my
: North Star build which I will be starting soon. I'm just trying
: to get my son's kayak close to complete before starting mine. I
: think I've gone over your North Star build blog a hundred times;
: it's a great pictoral of the build and that boat turned out
: awesome. I'm hoping that the North Star won't be too advanced
: for only my second boat build, but I've got time, so I'll go
: slow and try to get it right. Any words of wisdom?.....

: Thanks,
: Todd

Hi Todd. It's words of wisdom you want is it?

Mapping and planing the road into the future is stimulating, but joy is in the moment, in the act of will. To speak with conscious purpose is an act of will. To listen with an open heart is an act of love. There is no absolute right or wrong. There are no final solutions. There is no End that in its attainment would not nullify its purpose. There is only the inescapable process of sharing. Within the evolution of the Logos the journey is the destination.

In regard to the North Star though:... Apart from the ends it is actually not a difficult boat. The hard sheer makes joining the halves easy and the sheer-line is undemanding of the strips and no cheaters are required.

The stem is complex in the visualization, but it becomes clear as you begin to fabricate it. also the strips at the stem look as if they should be under serious stress but they go in easily enough. A little heat would help a lot here, although I didn't have a heat gun when I did it.

The stern is where you need to take the time. Due to the downward angle of the small stern deck I made a correct assumption that the full length strips at the keel would come in at an angle to the stern strips above it so I pre-cheated by narrowing them slightly as I went, I overdid it though and had to add a wedge back in again at the join. as you can see from the picture.

Although the stern worked out fine for me using the lamination method on the strips described in my website build log, I am sure a heat gun would make life easier here.

Another consideration regarding the stern. In my excitement to start the project I built the stern on it's separate formers without considering what I was going to do with the shades of the strips in the main hull. The result is that I have mismatches in tone where the sections of hull meet. This somewhat defines the difference in shape, which is part of the charm of the design, so doing it again I might do the stern all one colour.

The picture in the next post may make this a little clearer.

Et