Hi John,

I finished my 11th strip yesterday. I attached four plywood strips ~ 3ft x 1" x 1/2" to my risers/forms. This has two advantages. You have a place to put your strip and you avoid banging the ends of the strip on the floor etc. For beveling I just use another 3 ft long yellow cedar strip (3/4" x 1/4") as backing while the strip is supported at four places along the kayak lenght and I just hold the strip against the previous one very often and check the fit. So far it has been going well. The bevelling of an 18ft strip takes me about an hour. Attaching all the brackets and test clamping it adds another 30-45 min and 30 min for gluing. I only apply the glue to the next station ahead that I have sufficient time to place the strip properly in place.

The fit I get is very good. I only srewed up last night when a strip slightly moved on me leaving about a 0.008 gap on the inside at one station. I typically
get a fit better than 0.004.

I found a mirror really handy to check the fit on the inside.

Andreas

: Hank, in an earlier message in the achrives said he glued sandpaper on both
: side of a 6" drywall tape knife and sanded the two plywood sides of a
: S&G to a perfect tapered fit, and thought it would work on strips. I tried
: that and found that it pinch and bound up as I sanded my strips, so I will
: be using a plane after all. I haven't read how you guys hold your strip to
: plane, but this is what I did. I took a 2'x6'x 8' board and dado'd a press
: slot so 1/8" of the strip edge is above the 2x6 surface. I nailed on
: a guide fence along the edge of the of the 2x6 so the plane could guide
: along it to give a slight angle. For steeper angles I move the plane in
: from the guide but still bare along the 2x6 surface.

: John