Ready to Strip?

The terminology strip planking ("stripping" for short) strikes me as a bit odd. Gosh, one's imagination might run amok about the possible meaning! Generally, stripping implies the removal of something... paint... clothes... packaging...whatever. So here we have strips of wood - duhhhh (!) longish pieces of wood that have been stripped away from the henceforth bare-naked tree - well, okay - it'll be stripped down to nothingness.

Strip planking refers to a boat construction technique whereby strips of wood - thin planks - are laid side by side to construct a surface shell of the boat. It could be the "skin" of the entire boat - hull and deck - or in the case of the hybrid kayak, the deck only.

Forms in place - ready to strip plank

So, once the stitched hull was glassed inside and out, the forms had to be installed at one foot intervals. These become the temporary inner skeleton around which we will lay the ceder plank deck.The forms are covered with plastic tape so that you don't accidentally glue the cedar planks to the forms. The planks must be bent, coaxed, finagled and convinced by force and cunning to take on the sweeping contour of the kayak deck.

As suggested by my Night Heron guru at CLC Boatworks, Joey, I obtained a cheap clothes steamer from Sears in order to inject warm moisture into the cedar planks thereby providing them with greater pliability - albeit temporary. Another weapon of choice is a heat gun as well as many clamps, some judiciously placed weights, an ample supply of patiences and (oy!) - an amiable arsenal of expletives - the latter was not mentioned in the instructions.

The strips are secured along the forms in one of several ways. The simplest and quickest method is to use a staple gun. The designer in fact expressly recommends its use. A somewhat less efficient but perhaps cleaner method is to use brad nails. The indirect securing of the strips by means of clamping and wedging the strips to the forms will result in the cleanest look, however this is the most tedious method.

Had I opted for a design with many long strips, I might have opted for the cleanest option. However, my design will require many strips and I am therefore going to utilize brad nails when the strip needs to be secured to the forms. The stapler comes in handy when I want to wedge a strip and I can quickly staple the wedge next to the strip.

Obviously, the trickiest areas are those where the sweeping shape of the deck or the curvaceous design require the greatest deviation from the natural (straight) state of the plank.

You start with the sheer plank, the one that runs directly along the hull and meet at bow to stern. Several strips had to be scarfed together and then shaved a bit more narrow in order to get a sufficiently flexible, continuous sheer strip. According to my design I also needed to insert a thin dark strip at the bow and stern.

The next step typically is the king plank which generally runs along the center line of the deck. In my design there is no continuous king plank, however, the three component plank runs toward the cockpit a good bit of the way from bow and stern.  So, that was my next step.

Since my plan requires many shorter strips, curved pieces (all the while adhering to the larger shapes) I have to plan carefully and give a lot of thought to the sequence in which I should add planks.








I used very thin masking tape to lay over the forms the outline of the shapes. I'll have to remember to remove them or cover them with plastic before the glue has a chance to bond to the tape.