You have to stain prior to using any epoxy. The stain can't soak into the wood where there's epoxy.

I've just started on the Shearwater Sport from plans this weekend. I'm doing the deck in natural okoume and I'm staining the hull dark green. It definitely complicates the process but I think it will be worth it. 

I've cut out the pieces from the deck sheet, now I'm now trying to decide how best to approach to hull panels. I was going to stain first, then scarf the sheets in 2' wide panels, then cut out the full length pieces. However with the Shearwater Sport, the unstained deck side panels are in between the two stained hull panels.

My plan is to cut out the hull panels with a bit to spare before scarfing, then trim it exact after.

If that doesn't work, I bought an extra sheet of Okoume as a talisman against making mistakes. 

I built a SWS from plans three years ago as well, and used two different Behlen dyes on it.  I had no experience  at building kayaks or using dyes, and I'm so glad I took on the challenge.  It turned out great, and definitely gives it that one of a kind appearance.

You do have to apply the dye prior to epoxying as already said, and you will remove some of it during fitting and fairing, but it is pretty easy to touchup afterwards.  The trick is all in the blending with denatured alcohol, which turned out to be one of my favorite aspects of the build,  that and learning how to use a spokeshave.

Best of luck and ask questions when you need to!

Dave 

   I guess what I was thinking is once the hull is stitched and interior filets are done I would pull the wires and sand in prep for glassing. I would then rub a stain on and then proceed to glassing. For the deck I am planning a darker set  of strips (as I am building the hybrid version) in my design and was thinking finished bright the plain okume hull may be boring. If I did not like the outcome after glassing I think I could cover the hull with an interlux primer and paint. Does this sound feasible or am I headed for a Viking funeral?

Not that I am an expert on this stuff by any means, but I can't really envision a mistake so bad that the only recourse is The Viking Funeral.

My thinking with your planned approach is that it would work as long as you get no epoxy on the exterior of the hull be it from fingerprints or squeeze-out.  The dye/stain will not penetrate the epoxy.  If you are OK with your backup plan of painting I suppose you don't have much to loose.  To me it would seem just as easy to dye ahead of assembly and not worry about any incidental spluge.

   I have used stain on two kayaks and strongly recommend that you follow Nick's directions.  Any damaged edges are easy enough to touch up after the boat is together.  You can see that from the lower hull panel seems on m,y Shearwater Double.  As others have said, the problem with your proposed approach is that any spot of epoxy that gets on the wood will prevent stain from getting into the wood.  When you fillet/glass the inside of your boat, epoxy will seep through mant of the stitch holes and seams, so you will have a lot of epoxy on the outside of the boat.

   Thank you 2xthejoy and Mark N for your advice. I haven't built a stitch and glue in a few years, and forgot about the epoxy coming through the seams. 

I have a question on staining. Somewhere I read about staining and drying out wood flour for use in the seams between stained panels to match the color better. Is it worth doing and did either of you do it?

   Regarding coloring the wood flour, the only things I have ever seen are that no matter the color of the flour it will always get considerably darker as soon as the epoxy contacts it.  I simply used the wood flour as it came right out of the tub.  On my SWS I can't even recall any places that I can see any of the mix in the seams, and my seams were definitely not perfect! 

The bottom line for me now that the build in long behind me is that as I'm paddling my kayak I never think about any of that stuff.  I simply enjoy paddling my very own, one of a kind Shearwater Sport that I built with my own two hands.  When people have  stopped to comment on it or to ask questions I have yet to have anyone point out any of the multiple errors I made as I built it!  I'm th eonly one who knows.

i have had experience in dyeing and drying out woodflour to better match other stained elements.

for me, this was particularly useful when the overall staining scheme is a distinct color and relatively dark.  as pointed out above, the result of wood flour mixed with epoxy is almost always darker than the stained wood itself that has not been made into sawdust.  

it's really simple to make.  i take an 8 oz cup of wood flour, a cap-full of the stain i am matching, mix it adding additional denatured alcohol to blend the stain in.  then let dry and put it aside.

when i am then creating a batch of fillet, i will typically start with plain wood flour and then add some of my colored wood flour and blend it to get a uniform colored fillet material....playing with proportions to get the colour that i want.  

on my last boat, which was a dark mahogony, i made a batch of black and dark mahogony wood flour.  the black i used for through hulls for my webbing (drill, fill, drill) type of work.  which gave it a very clean look for these elements.  the dark mahogony i used for fillets between my coaming riser and the deck.  and this basically matched the fillet to the mahogony stained deck and adjacent riser.

a sample of the work is at this URL

http://www.clcboats.com/forum/clcforum/thread/37124.html

hope that helps

h