To all,
The last wooden addition to the Guilmont “L” I have been building is the external stem. I thought I did it right. After I unwrapped my stetch film and fiberglass reinforced tape from my epoxied stem I found a not too pleasant present. As you can see from the pics, my ash strips do not come in contact with the end of the boat. Looking back, I should have had longer strips to give me a better level to create the contact I needed. Also, there was probably too much thickened epoxy and I was not creating enough pressure (lever problem) to create good squeeze out at the very tip.
So now I look at my options. My first thought was to add some wedges of strips to make up the open areas. Problem with that is with the new position of the end of the external stem, it won’t rise (when the kayak is in the correct orientation) to meet the tip of the new wedge pieces.
This leaves me another option. I cut the external stem at the point where the hull separates from iy. I cut it at a tangent to the hulls curve to hopefully minimize the bend at the end. To help with the bend I can go a bit longer with the new strips to give me the lever and since even with the relatively longer strips they will be short enough to fit into a pot to steam, I steam them to improve pliability.
Does this sound feasible? Is this the best solution, or is there something else I am not considering.
Lou
hi Lou,
looks like you may have forgot to add the picture to your post. i can’t see it.
once you post a picture, will try to answer.
h
At the risk of sounding flippant, if this is a dissaster then my life (and boat buidling errors) are truly beyond all hope. I’d slap the gap full of some thickened epoxy (and maybe build up the “missing” bow point volume a bit if desired, but I think that might look more funky than just rounding over the existing wood), sand to create some sort of semi-pleasing form of a rounded pointy end of the boat (even if not true to the original “lines” of the boat), put on your finish coats and go boating. With some judicial mixing of wood flour and cellofil you can create a paste that will provide (IMHO) a reasonble color match - neither too dark or too white. You could always paint little black “end bumper” tips on each end of the kayak if you don’t like the look. Or, you can of course put in lots of time and effort to make a correction more pleasing to your aesthetic sensibilities. As others have said, there’s almost nothing that can’t be undone and redone with the wood and glass building materials we work with - and have also said, it’s your boat, so do what you like and you can’t go wrong.
Jeff,
Your response is totally reasonable. My “disaster” response was more an immediate reaction to almost being at the end of this task and finding out, “nope you got some more work to do!”
Your literary “slap in the face” was much appreciated and made me think of some simpler solutions. I think if I fill the void with a piece of ash and round the existing external stem into it it should look good.
Lou
Hi Lou,
If it were me i would do the tangent or just redo it.
I guess it depends on how much material i had, how much/risk is there in a redo, and how finicky i was about the look and what i think i learned in the process and can i address my lessons learned…
The look has definitely caught your attention…so lets start with you are going to do something…
The key thing as you mention is you need to have those stem strips long enough next time that they extend up and past the bow so your tape can pull it into place. Even with prebend and potential steaming, you will want to do that.
And this suggests you have some additional material…how much i don’t know.
The challenge you will have with the tangent will be, if you are finicky about the looks, up close you will see it. After you finish sanding and wetting out the strips, you will see the sandwich look and the tangent will be visible. My sense if i was going to do a tangent i would want it at the bottom towards the bow knuckle (where bow line blends into keel line) and not the bow itself.
From a redo perspective this is pretty easy to remove (either the tangent or the whole thing) without a lot of risk. 30 mintutes between a saw and some 60 grit sandpaper. So i would not worry about that.
For me, i suppose i would just redo it and maybe do some prebendng with steam and cut my strips so i was 2 inches above/beyond the bow tip so i could get some purchase on it.
The other thing i would share when i do this step is i use wood glue…not epoxy. I have a bit more control i feel when i do that and it’s easier to undo if i make a mistake.
The other thing i do which helps with bending is i don’t do all the strips in one session. It’s easier to bend one or two at a time if you have a lot of bend you need to make happen. I can also save material becuase you inevitably need more layers closer to the bow then you need at the bow knuckle. And when you do them one at a time you can see more easily where the next strip has to be laid relative to the one before it
Will try to upload pics that show this
H
Howard,
What do you think of this idea? I glue in an ash wedge with some thickened epoxy, then round over the stem.
Lou
That’ll work too.
Try that and fare it in and see how it goes.
You don’t want the ends to be overly pointy so you will do some rounding to your taste 
H
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The wedge approach is what I would do.
Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. The wedges are in. Will plane, sand and shape tomorrow to see how it looks.
To all,
Still needs a bit more sanding, but I’m satisfied with the look!
Looks pretty good to me!
i really like your aesthetic and how you shaped and rounded the bow…it’s an art to get the ends right…you appear to be rocking right along.
congratulations…not so much of a disaster 
