Hi, have got a lot of good tips from everyone here in building an Osprey canoe as SOF and now am planning a Bufflehead sailing canoe also Yost style. I overbuilt the canoe as the nice wood here is close grained Scots pine, clear but heavy and strong and i used 20x20mm stringers, and now will reduce the stringers to 15x15mm (0.6") fastened to 12 or 15mm 5 ply frames. There are 4 stringers + gunwale + keel. I previously used long decking screws to fasten the stringers and would like to use them again but am concerned that the drill hole would weaken the smaller stringer. However Cape Falcon site describe using ring nails to fasten 5/8" stringers to ribs building their Adirondack canoe. Should I increase the width of the stringers to 18-20mm to compensate for the screw holes or lash the stringers using a hole drilled from the top to bottom to take the cord to avoid bumps in the cloth. I fear lashings would take a long time (48 of them if I screw the thicker gunwales and keel) and ruin my fingers. I thought to also use flexible construction glue with fillets as well. What do people think?
Peter