: Hello Kayak forum readers! I'm in the process of buiding my first
: strip built kayak, a guillemot, and I'm wondering if anyone out
: there knows if there is a place i can buy cove and bead cedar
: strips near Portland, ME? All of my searching has led me to
: believe that chesapeak light craft may have the monopoly on
: supplying these. Is there anywhere else?

: Are there any other kayak builders out there around Portland, ME? I
: think as a first time builder I could use a few pointers. Most
: of the time I feel like I don't know what the hell i'm doing!
: The only encouraging thing is that the strongback does seem to
: look like a kayak, so i must be on the right track...

: Thanks,
: AaronO.

Hi Aaron, welcome to this forum,there is a huge amount of help here from a newbe to a pro.I'm still a newbe so I will pass on what worked for me as a beginner.My first boat was using cove and bead and as a beginner I used way too much glue and didn't get the bead in the cove tight so I must have had lot's of pooling. After completion and using
the boat about 6 mo.in the hot Florida sun I began to see cream colored stains under the glass. My guess is the sun drew the pooled glue to the surface under the glass (lesson learned) so the next boat I used a rolling bevel. After searching this forum I found the better builders used a bevel from 3deg. to 7deg. so I chose 5deg and it worked
well for me, fortunately I saved the tailings from the bevel cut and used them to fill gaps on the inside. On my next boat I will work extra hard to get the two strips tighter.
Hope this helps I'm sure you will get more and better advise. Good luck and just have fun. Nick R.