Jayarbro (Jay?)...

 Looks beautiful.  I am building one of these too, and would love to see any consruction photos you can post.  Where will you be using this boat?

nice!

Hi Scratch... yes it's Jay,

I take it out on the Chattahoochee River and to Lake Lanier north of Atlanta to fish for Stripers. It's set up with a depth finder, internal battery with charger, running lights & an aerated live well which drops into the rear hatch.

Have you started with your strip deck yet? The reason I ask is that I put 1/2"x1/2" sheer clamps along the top of the hull which gave me a wider area for tacking the first perimeter run of strips down to the hull. I drilled holes with the same tiny drill bit I used for the wire stitching holes and nailed the strips to the sheer clamp every foot. That kept it secure for the stripping process and allowed me to glue down the top deck without glassing the inside seam. I glassed over the outside sheer and ran a fillet along the inside of the deck & sheer clamp joint. Also since I used Mahogany for the perimeter strips which is much stiffer than cedar, it was harder to bend, but it will be more durable for the inevitable knocks it's going to get. I only used a few staples where necessary, and mostly used scrap strip pieces as wedges and stapled those to the deck forms to hold the glued strips in place until they dried. There are only a few staple holes in the deck at all.

I hope you have read "The Strip Built Sea Kayak" by Nick Shade, as that is where most of my working info came from;

http://www.guillemot-kayaks.com/guillemot/information/products/books/stripbuilt_sea_kayak

I will be happy to offer suggestions if you get in a bind, but the stripping process is pretty simple. You only need a few small hand tools and alot of patience. It will probably take you about 50 to 75 hours to strip the deck, depending on how fast you work. 

Here is a link to the web page I am working on with more photos. If you left click the thumbnails, you should get higher resolution images so you can look at more detail.

http://woodduckhybrid.homestead.com/Main.html

Thanks Jay...good advice.  I've only just started stitching my hull, so I have a ways to go before I'm working on the deck, but I'll definitely take a look at how you did things.

I do have The Strip Built Kayak.  I actually bought it about 5 years ago, but only just recently actually set about making a kayak (obviously, not a strip-built.)

I used to own and fly (but didn't build) a homebuilt aircraft, and your modifications bring back some memories!  Nice job.   (If you're curious, I had a Long EZ, which in many ways is the kayak of the aircraft world.)

Jay,

Looks like an award winner if you can get it to Okoumefest next year. Pretty cool.

Laszlo

Thanks for the encouragement Laszlo... I wish I could make it up there but that would be one heck of a road trip from Atlanta!

I checked out your web page and got a few ideas as I was building mine. I did the same Graphite Epoxy treatment on the bottom of the hull and it seems to work great. I also did a variation of the bungee hold downs you used, only with carbon fiber loops & hooks instead of wood. I also totally copied your method on the foot peg studs. Thanks for the pointers.

I am posting pictures of a similar nature in the hope that it will help some other poor soul like myself who is not satisfied with building it "as is".