Mick,

: I was having some fun by saying you can't do this or that, but obviously
: anyone who wanted to could.

Ah gee, and I was looking forward to the challenge :-)

: If the process as described by Spidey was used, after the hull is glassed,
: the hull and forms attached (by glue residue, etc) is removed from the ext
: strongback. This is where the hull has to act as a beam solely on its own.
: It has to be fairly stiff and strong to keep alignment and to keep on
: building on. The strength/stiffness (as Shawn points out) comes from the
: square of the depth. If the guillemot hull depth is half of a Moore's,
: etc. - the stiffness is 4x less, if a third - 9x less. I suggest that this
: is too weak to build on without major problems.

I can see that happening. Of course, if you are doing something shallow and specialized like a sit-on-top, it may have internal forms/stringers anyway ... Geez, we've got to stop this! I'm getting all kind of building ideas ... my wife is going to kill me :-)

: Much of my point is that the ext does not allow as much variation of
: configuration or designs. It does have better length flexibility though.

Ok, but when you decide to build a Putz or Wee Lassie on internals, let us know :-)

: As a tool, your comments makes sense to me, I can think of few that may be as
: useful as an 16-18ft long straight platform/jig to build/work upon.

And it comes in handy when imitating those olympic balance beam and pommel horse exercises too :-)

: But it
: is balanced by whether you have space or desire for it. Like you say, its
: the builers perspective - ok for some not for others.

I have really come to appreciate to readily accessible space. As Nick shows in his book, this can be done for internal too. I've found my saw horses are pretty handy to clamp pieces too also. No matter which way we go, this makes building much more enjoyable.

: You know when I was talking with Rehd, I thought the ext was a little less
: useful. And for my uses and ideas the int is what I would choose. But the
: pure truth of the matter is that if I had space and multiple projects on
: the go or anticipated to be on the go, I would build a long bench like
: structure, sorta like a box beam and about a foot or 2 wide and fairly
: stiff and true. It would be a great jig for many uses. But of course it
: would be a bench and not an ext(hehe).

Yep. The strongbench idea has some pretty good merits. You need a good place to set your beer down once in a while :-)

How about it Rehd? You going to show us some pictures of your bench when its ready?

Bill