Strip-built is a method of boat building commonly used for canoes and kayaks, but also suitable for larger boats. The process involves securing narrow, flexible strips of wood edge-to-edge around temporary forms. The forms are cut as a series of cross-sections of the final design and set up along a "strong back" or other solid base. Stripping begins at the gunwale and finishes with "the football". The strips are edge-glued to each other, being held in place with nails or staples to the forms. When the glue has dried, the nails/staples are removed and the rough hull is sanded smooth. It is then covered with a resin/epoxy impregnated overlay of fiberglass cloth, which is sanded and finished before removing the hull from the forms. The inside is then smoothed and similarly reinforced before seats, thwarts, and gunwales, are added to complete the boat.
This process is similarly suited to building kayaks. The strips are stapled onto a number of chipboard forms, the structures is sanded and fibreglassed, then the forms are removed and the hull is attached.
In the 1950s, this process for building canoes was adapted from ship/boat building techniques, and refined by a group of Minnesota canoe racers; primarily Eugene Jensen, Irwin C.(Buzzy) Peterson, and Karl Ketter.
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