"I rarely see a strip kayak with properly fit B+C strips, and they have terrible fill jobs and fractured glass because the joint has no structural integrity."

To me is sounds like you are saying B&C doesn't work for many people. Am I wrong?

You are correct. But, let's be honest, for some people nothing works. It's not the method, it's the person employing it.

"I would only do B+C because the contact area for glue is twice as great, leading to a stronger joint, and giving a greater chance of some structural integrity if it's not a perfect fit all the way around the bead, because even if you only get 50% contact that's as much as is possible with a beveled strip."

This sounds to me like you are saying B&C is the best option. Am I wrong?

You are wrong. B+C is the best option for me. The option that works best for the person who is building the kayak is the best option for them.

"rout beads and coves (separate passes) on enough strips for my first (and probably only) strip kayak"

The difference between an idea that sounds good and and how it works in practice can be great.

This is exactly my point. I'm not sure how many homebuilt kayaks you see, but my standards are pretty high, and I've never seen one in person that was particularly well executed. I've only run across one beveled strip kayak, a Fire Star, and it did not reach the level of the B+C construction I have seen.

What you can do and what I can do are not what everyone can do. It may sound good and seem easy to bevel the strips, but in practice, in my experience, by people other than you, it does not seem to be as successful as strip building with B+C strips. But when you get right down to it, all that matters is the end result. If you can teach your clients to do it well, then that is a success and it will show up in their end product. In my opinion setting up a quality router table and cutting a couple of test strips to get the setup, then ditching the setup strips is easier and will lead to better end result than learning to bevel the strips on the go as you're building a strip kayak for the first time, particularly if you have little to no experience with hand tools. Whenever I do a setup like this I always machine some "sacrificial" pieces out of scrap or cheap wood specifically to do setup with. Again- this is a product of putting my training to use in a commercial shop where we did this sort of work all day. I've cut thousands of copes and sticks for raised panel doors, which is a lot more complex to set up than beads and coves. But in the end, my experience doesn't count when it comes to a beginner building a first kayak. Your training and experience will differ from mine, and will certainly differ from your clients' training and experience. As "authorities," that's what we need to keep in mind, not what we are ourselves able to accomplish.

If you are interested, there was a recent article in Fine Woodworking on using measuring tools to do router table setup to make it quicker, more accurate, and easier than the traditional "eyeball" method. He uses it on cope and stick setup, but it's basically the same as bead and cove, only fancier... I use a "poor man's" version with accurately machined setup blocks and a straight edge, then do my test cuts, and the fine-tuning adjustments are pretty small.

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