I am building my first kayak--a Great Awk. My son and I are working from Nick's book. We did the lofting together, we did the CAD drawings together, and we have cut out the forms together. The only significant headache so far has been in aligning the forms on the 2 by 4 strongback so that the reference lines line up for all the forms.

I created a solution that worked for me. Some of you experienced guys may have a better way. First, I modified the brackets screwed to the strongack so that they extended fairly close to the edge of the form. I added a notch for a clamp to hold onto. I then positioned all the forms and used spring clamps to temporarily hold the forms to the brackets. This worked well.

The next problem was getting my old eyes to focus on all the refernce lines. I am sure my wife would have laughed had she walked in the garage while I was tilting my head in all kind of directions. Alas, no luck. I solved this problem by using 3-inch long square toothpicks taped to each form. They extended each of the reference lines on each form.

With my toothpicks acting as visual guides and the spring clamps holding the forms, I was able to align all the forms and screw them to the brackets.

Success! I would like to know how others have solved this problem that caused me such pain.