: Hi Myrl,
: Glad to hear you got the deck on. How does it look? Did you say that you
: already had the recess and coaming done? What's left just sanding,
: varnishing and outfitting? Carving your own seat?

: It appears as though there are many different approches to stripping the deck
: and attaching it to the hull. At this time I like the way Bill Price did
: his Sea Spirit the best and will try that on my model sized Cirrus. I too
: would like to completely finish the hull, inside and out, before proceding
: onto the deck. That means that the interior forms are just used to build
: the hull, then removed and set aside. Now I'm considering a second
: 1/2"X1/2" sheerclamp attached to the hull just below the real
: sheerclamp (that attaches to the deck) to act as a shelf. In which case,
: after you epoxy the lower portion of the sheerclamp to the hull, the real
: sheerclamp just sits on top of it, allowing you to temporarily or
: permanently attach the two together. One reason for this would be if you
: wanted to use Bill's deck frame idea for a Skinned hybrid, until you had
: time to strip it. It would also be more surface area and act as a guide
: when the time comes to permanently mate the two. I don't see any drawbacks
: to this, what do you think?
: SMF

About a week before I saw the Cirrus, I had posted on the design board, how I'd like to modify the S&G Guillemot hull... One modification was to increase the hight of the Hull panels, so I could use a shear clamp. That was back when I fiured I had a few more weeks to go on my current kayak, what was that, 4 months ago?

Anyways, I've not actually built a kayak with a shear clamp, but it seems to me that it is the way to go for a hybrid. Seems it is the simplest way to get a good fit of the deck onto the hull. Although the fiberglass tape on the inside seam worked out well for me. I was worried that the thickness differnece between the hull and deck would be a problem. However with the beveled angles on the joint, I had no problems.

So what do I have to do on mine..

I hope to get the hatch hold downs done, and the hatches sealed.
Then the bulk heads in. After that I'm hitting the local river, before it freezes up. It will not be done, but no one from the shore will be able to tell the difference. I've a co-worker who build a Endevour, he has left over mini-cell, including a seat he carved, but then did not fit his kayak well enough. I'm going to try it out.

Then I need the final coat of epoxy then varnish, and foot pegs, and the back rest on the seat.
Then I'll have the long wait for next spring... hmm what new kayak to build. Likely it will depend on what I can fit on the scraps of ply wood I have left over. I have 15inch wide pieces (16ft long) , and the section with the original S&G deck for the guillemot drawn on them. I'd like somthing with a bit more cargo room.

Had a bit of a scare putting the tape on the outside edge when joining the hull and the deck. after the first coat of expoxy had set up, but was still green, I scraped the edge. the second coat did not hide the white lines at all!!. I decided I'd fix it later, but the next day the lines were gone. Thing is doing the combing, I had fiberglass overlapping existing stuff on the deck. when I wetted that out the lines vanished right away. Odd, I expect it was to do with the viscosity of the resin, my basement is quite cool right now. If I recall right, this time the epoxy was more set up, so maybe the second coat had to sit longer to soak in... Likely a combination of the two.

I've very happy with the results, it has lots of minor blemishes, but I wanted a sea kayak, and now I more or less have one, and a nice one to. I'm at the stage, where I stop and just look at it for a bit, when I happen to goto the basement for other reasons. I really like the look of the plywood hull mating with the cedar strip deck. I'll borrow a camera from a friend and put up some pictures in the next few days.

The biggest gaff/blemish to date:

fitting the hull to the deck I marked material to cut off the hull to get a good fit. Permanent marker of course, it was a fat line, and I removed enough material to take off 1/2 the line. I had to remember to wash it off later... Sure enough, there it is, under my tape, a foot long blue line right at the bow. Oh well, as soon as I forget it is there, I'll never notice it again.

Other than that I have a few marks under the glass from where I damaged the glass at the shear line (I was prying the deck out from behind the hull, when I was lineing them up). That and fill spots, a few staple holes, nothing major.

take care,

Myrl