All of the thin deck strips that were shaped and temporarily nailed into place (in the previous episode) have today been removed from their unique positions, buttered up with epoxy and then fixed back into their individual places, forever.
This process of building by the wood strip method is characterised by the cliche of taking two steps forward, taking a step back, before taking two steps forward again ....
Bill carefully spreading the ochre-coloured epoxy on to the bevelled faces of the thin wood strips.
You can see above just how thin these three deck chine strips are. At 6100mm in length, 8mm in width and only 6mm in depth, they behave more like pieces of string than wood.
Standing back for a moment to see how the kayak is coming together.
For the curious who have been wondering how the internal formwork will ever be removed:
the hull and deck are not yet joined together. At some stage soon it will be possible to remove the hull from the formwork as there will be a sufficient number of strips laid on the deck to prevent the internal formwork from undergoing any deformation / twisting. When the deck is completely laid it too will be removed from the formwork and then fixed back to its hull.
Placing the partially complete kayak on the flat surface of the tables it was apparent that this kayak will have a nice amount of rocker.
