: GO Spidey!

: Nick, Ya gotta ask yourself when you get set to pull the trigger on that
: staple gun. Am I gonna build a kayak that I can pass down from generation
: to generation, or am I in such a hurry that I'll spend the rest of the
: days saying "I really like the way it turned out EXCEPT I wish I
: hadn't been in such a hurry and used staples"?

: Oh, and spend some time making sure you have good and tight gaps between the
: wood strips. That's more time that you'll be glad you spent.

: It'll definately set your kayak apart from the rest if you take a little
: extra time and do it right.

: As far as time goes, you've got an early on starting next springs kayak
: anyway (Unless you're in Australia).

: Just my humble opinion.

: Dale

Nick, I just returned from (8 hour overnite drive) the Newfound Rendezvous. There were many examples of both techniques and I personally don't think stapless construction has much to do with the quality of the end result. The best eye catching boats were the ones with the well thought out stripping patterns with matched colors and NO gaps between strips. There were stapless constructed boats that were not finished as well as staple constructed ones. Some of the best builders use staples: Nick, Ross, Edgar. Their boats were some of the best on the beach, all with staple holes!!

Now, If you decide to go stapless, I watched a demo by Rob Macks of Laughing Loon, where he showed how to do FAST stapless construction. He uses hot glue to attach the strips to the forms( directly to the form material) with spring clamps between stations. The method seamed very fast. He said he strips a boat in 1- 1.5 days in his shop.

Just another opinion,

Larry C.