When I first got involved with this project my intentions were to build the craft as a gift for my sister who has always been a tremendous aunt to her nieces and nephews, way beyond the call of duty, and also to provide me with a fulfilling project. I did lengthly research on the net (this bbs included) and read a few books, yours included, and realized that there is a tremendous amount to learn and a wide variety of construction processes that can be used to build these boats. After this research I decided that it would be best if I used this project as a learning tool to try and integrate the best practices of others who have the experience, and then build a second kayak (possibly a double) as the gift. As far as being a showpiece or not, I know my sis will love whatever ends up coming out of the shop but we all know that flaws are magnified to the builder and we all try and minimize them. However, there is absolutely no chance that this project would ever be relegated to collecting dust in the basement. I am trully having a blast building this thing and judging from the response from my son and others there will probably be a few more in the works later on. Thanks for the words of wisdom, Nick

: You need to decide for your self what your goal is. Do you want a boat you
: will have fun paddling or do you want a show place for your craftsmanship.
: You can easily make a nice boat quite quickly which will paddle great and
: impress your friends, or you can which a huge amount of effort build a
: piece of furniture which will paddle great and impress even your enemies.

: If you go into to the project of building your first boat with the attitude
: that you want a piece of art, you will very likely get frustrated and lose
: enthusiasm for the project as your first-timer mistakes start to
: accumulate. Or you can have alot of fun building a boat which you are not
: overly concerned about achieveing perfection, get it done in a reasonable
: amount of time and despite everything, end up with a thing of beauty. And
: when you are done you will be so excited that you will want to build
: another.

: There was a builder on this board last year who brought his boat to the
: Newfound Rendezvous last year who did a knock out job (including no
: staples) and he swears he will never build a kayak again. It took him over
: 400 hours and it shows, but he ruined the fun of the project.

: I rarely hear from people who quit building their boat because they just got
: bored. I have heard from a good number who have stalled out or quit
: because of one or two strips which just would not lay in place
: "perfectly". If they had just run a sheetrock screw through the
: recalitrant strip they would be done by now. They would have a boat they
: could be proud of and would have to take pains to point out the offending
: hole.

: Boats built without staples look better than boats built with staples, but
: boats built with staples look a whole lot better than a form with a dozen
: strips on it sitting in the basement gather dust.

: The goal of the project should be to have fun. If you can only have fun by
: creating a "perfect" boat, then you should take the time and not
: use staples. You need to decide for yourself what you want to achieve with
: the project and select your building standards appropriately.