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I recently toured the factory which makes all of the boats for Disneyland and Universal Studios. Would you believe they are all strip built! They build ‘em like a big kayak. One inch by three inch cove and bead mahogany strips. They stick them together with epoxy and nail down to the board below through the cove. So they do not use any clamps (very few) and can strip all day long. The insides are never covered in cloth. They just use some thickened epoxy and paint.
My question is have any of you built kayaks using this technique? They were building 50 footers. It seems you could shoot small brads down the small stock we use and avoid staple marks down the outside of the boat.
Is the cloth on the inside of the boat really structurally necessary? The professional builders say no. However, they are using two layers of ten ounce cloth on the outside of the boats they're building.
This is an archived message from The Kayak Building Bulletin Board.