: Hi Rick, that's quite an achievement. I really like the way the banding
: looks... you sound a little excited too It's like a miracle when the
: wood gets wet-out; it really starts to come alive. Are you planning a
: similar pattern for the deck?

Thanks, and yes, I'm very excited!! Regarding the deck, I know that I won't be using any more Cypress. I wanted to reserve that color for a fairly uniform colored football to have that stand out more when the full hull was in view, or looking into an empty cockpit. From the shear, I'll go up with a couple of the darkest strips to ensure that the accent lines there show up nicely, and after that, I'm still undecided. I've looked at lots of sample pics, played with 30-40 sketches of my own, but still haven't made up my mind. The problem is, I like so many artistic designs that I've come up with, that I can't settle on "the one", so..... I may just have to build them all! :-)

Speaking of building them all, I'll bet I could cut 20-30% of the time out of the next boat, up to this point. You can read and research all you want, but there is no substitute for sucking up some cedar dust and experiencing it yourself. As folks and Nick's book said, it does take a little time to get the hang of prepping your strips and stripping, but once you have that experience under your belt, things tend to go a lot smoother and faster (which in my case will mean not having to fix so much stuff on the deck). A little "hands on" sure goes a long way!

Rick