: Hi,
: Very very new to kayaking and building myself, soaking up info like
: crazy! I saw these U shaped clamps in the videos that Nick has
: done and made some myself on the tablesaw. I ripped 3"
: strips from plywood left over from my kayak forms, then using
: mitre gauge on table saw sliced off 2" sections. had about
: 40 of em in less than 10 minutes. The slots were just as quick.
: clamped 10 together with bottom and right edge flush, clamped on
: top left corner. Used a dado (about 3/4" thick cut), set
: the fence on the tablesaw so it would cut where I wanted the
: groove to be and started dado blade off low then progressively
: worked it higher as I ran this block thru. Clamp provided a nice
: out of the way handle on the block and the dado made quick work
: of cutting out the slot. I cut slot only about an inch deep,
: hopefully that should be enough...

Nice thing about having the slot deeper is it'll fit over the strip you're working on and then over the strip you're attaching to, allows you to hold the two strips together so the edges line up. With the curvature of the hull the clamps have to be angled a little to compensate for that curve, but still helps alot.

That and a huge pile of masking tape and you're ready to build (masking tape holds the strips between the frames).

Bill H.