The strips have been going on nicely, but to get a nice colour balance at the bottom, I've had to play around with some of the strips. Nothing major, but I had to use a couple of old strips to get a nice solid dark cedar in the middle of the canoe. The alternative would have been an inconsistent light/dark blend which I wasn't crazy about.
So, I've built up all one side of the canoe bottom. Next step is to trim off the excess and finish it down to the center line. It's a good thing I put the basswood strip in where I did. The curves to the center get more pronounced as you move in and it was a wrestling match just to get that in.
The old strips I found were as hard as a rock - they had been around for years. It took a pile of clamps and bungees to keep it in place. But the end result should be beautiful.There is still a pile of work to be done and I'm probably going to be hard pressed to get this finished before May.
