: Roger,

: I was looking at your site and noticed you said you would like to eliminate
: the curves on the bottom of the bow and stern. What do you mean and why
: were they a problem?

What Mike said…

Okay a little more detail. The stem on Mike’s latest boat is good and straight. This makes building clean and managable. On the other hand my boat has a stem that starting at the tip of the bow has a slight convex curve to it. However, where the stem attaches to the keelson the curvature greatly increases. Although it looks real cool, this became a liability during the finishing aspects of the kayak building. The staples in the stem (and there was a lot of ‘em) caused a buildup along the center of the stem. This made attaching the final outer stem piece very difficult. It did not want to mount straight and also didn’t want to make the transition around the tight curve and onto the keelson. Please keep in mind the outer stem piece had been soaked for two weeks and steamed prior to attaching. The stem piece was off center far enough that I had to replane after the attachment. I also did not get as much contact as I’d like between the stem and stem piece. All these problems would have been avoided if I’d used a straight stem timber on the bow and stern.

Roger