: I am about to fillet my Artic Hawk kit hull together. With the tight string
: test the keel line looks pretty straight, I will double check every thing
: a couple of more times. (Just a little up tight about getting something
: wrong!!!)

: Guestions: It seems to me the instructions call for some really wide fillets
: on the seams. All of the hull already has 4 oz on the interior. So if I go
: with fillets that are as small as possible and then put a layer of bias 4
: oz on the joints will I have a tough strong enough boat for general use?

: Also, designer has me putting in a piece of the plywood about 1 1/2 inches
: wide by about 6 feel long and filling the gap between the bottom and the
: hull and where this piece rests on the bottom panels. Again would some
: glass tape be a decided loss of strength? I am 5 ft 3in and should weigh
: in at 150 but have bloomed to about 175 to 185. Really need to lose the
: weight, but it is more fun to obsess about trimming a few ounces from the
: boat than to eat right and drop 30 pounds myself.

: Thanks for all the info you guys share.

IIRC it's a fascinating collection of construction techniques, glass tape on the ends of the chine but only thick fillets in the cockpit and NO glass? Pre-glass of panels before stitching up. Does your kit use 2oz and 4oz or just 4oz cloth?

When I saw it being built up at CLC it opened up the idea of preglassing the underside of the bent decks which would have addressed the original unglassed CapeCharles and Chesapeake deaks weaknesses.

Be that as it may you can experiment away with the designers intention although it may displease him.

Regarding saving weight,,you could probably save a couple pounds of weight if you replaced glass tape with cut strips of 6oz cloth and made minimal endpours and fillets. Depending on how much you like to round over the chines on the outside you could go from very narrow fillets to 3/4" wide or so with cloth or tape over that.

Regarding that wood strip in the middle I think that is a cosmetically neat way to handle that joint if there's no tape or glass applied post fillet/gluing the seams. Is there cloth applied to the interior after stitiching or is the pre-glassing to the bottom panels is all that's there?

I like the idea of pre-glassing the panels, they're flexible enough that the glass doesn't provide any inhibition ot bending and it allow one to apply epoxy very efficiently and ensure an even and thorough sealing without having to deal with vertical surfaces in a stitched hull of raw ply.

If you're really concerned about making a lighter kayak it would have made sense to pick a smaller kayak.

Could you describe the preglassing on the hull panels or the complete glassing schedule on the hull minus any method of joining, fillets or tape?