Setting the sheer strip is sheer madness

Posted on by David

The first and one of the most critical steps in the assembly of a strip-built kayak is to set the sheer strip.

What is a sheer strip? Well I’m so glad you asked. Let me tell you. But WARNING: sort of technical content. The sheer line is where the deck and hull meet. The line generally extends from the bow to the stern. The sheer differs from the waterline in that it is more structure-defined and it follows the curves of the boat from bow to stern. The waterline is a straight line from bow to stern where, here it comes, the water line is. See image below

In this drawing of the Great Auk from CLC’s website, the sheer line is the thicker black line extending from the top of the bow to the top of the stern. The waterline is the straight thin blue line just below the sheer line.

Setting the strip properly is kind of important. It creates the two halves of the boat that once complete will separate for re-assembly without the forms. Where the top and bottom meet can be a pretty sharp angle so the strip must be beveled to allow the two halves to seam together.

This is really tricky and can be frustrating at times. Each form have a bevel mark indicating the angle but it’s still somewhat of an educated guess when sanding or planing the angle.

Here I am trying to set the bevel on the strip, a beautiful piece of clear walnut.
Here is the strip set on the forms. You can’t see the bevel lines in this photo but you can see the small piece of wood that I used to hold the strip in place at the proper bevel angle.

I attached the strips to both sides and glued them to the inner stem.

For reference, you are looking at the stern of the hull. I decided to start at the bottom and work my way up. If you look real hard, you can see all the shaving of the strip on the floor.

I wanted some accent touches for this build, something that would add some personality but not be obvious. The white wood in the picture below is green ash. Ash is very strong and has great color but it weighs almost 30% more than cedar so I plan on using it sparingly.

This ash is a little special. It came from the tree that used to be in my front yard. Emerald borers killed it three years ago so I had it taken out but took the logs to a sawyer and had boards cut to hopefully put to some good use. I would say this defines good use.

Walnut then ash. A strip of ash will also go on the deck side later.

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