: Now that the work crew is done in my basement, I can start cleaning
: up and get to starting on my hull strips.
: I've made the stems and will rebuild my station setup.
: I've been thinking of a strategy for doing the hull strips and was
: wondering about the keel. I have seen that some recommend adding
: a few full-length strips at the keel, after doing some strips
: from each side's sheer line. You then keep stripping and you end
: up closing two "semi-football" shaped holes, either
: side of the keel, at the end.

: The other approach, which is conceptually simpler, is just strip
: all the way from the shear lines until you end up with a footbal
: at the center of the hull to close up. I would use alternating
: strips (herringbone?).

: I was wondering of there is an advantage to one way over the other?
: Is it strictly a cosmetic difference?
: Any thoughts?

: Thx,
: Rob

I suggest looking at as many pictures of similar design boats as you can to see what others did and how it turned out. The best choice will be influenced by the shape of the boat of course. There’s a lot of build pictures and links to build blogs in the forum so you should be able to get an idea. Spend some time over this, it’s important!

I have done a single stripper canoe, and I built the football first then stripped from the bilge up. That method demands the least of my skills I think, but it was my own design done in FreeShip so I could predict the exact shape required for the football.

Starting at the keel and working toward the sheerline usually results in the early strips twisting sharply near the stems, and short strips at the sheerline to make up the extra girth midships. It avoids having to fit strips in a hole. If you build the hull upside down you have to handle strips with glued edges.

Working from sheerline to keel ends up with strips bent sharply across their width, but some folk simply change the strip direction to fore-and-aft in the final football.

I’ve also read that some folks start at the bilge and work in both directions so it averages out.

Cheater strips can be used which are less than full-length. For a painted boat esthetics are not important but for a bright finish it is advisable to check that all strips will curve up towards each end of the boat as a downward curve is considered by many to be unattractive.

I build canoes rather than kayaks so some of the above may not be for you.