I made the hull of my Great Auk out of redwood. It was pink when I sanded it, but it darkened gradually in the light of my greenhouse/shed. After I glassed the hull the wood darkened considerably, almost chocolate. There isn't much room for it to get darker at this point. I used redwood and a fairly dark WRC on the deck. There is a strong contrast between the two with the redwood considerably darker.
This is my first stripper, and I was impressed at how easily the redwood worked. That is, until I bought some cedar for the deck and found how easy a wood could be to cut, plane and sand.
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