> 3/4" PVC pipe works good. You can get it in 10' lengths.

Even when you join two pieces with a coupling this stuff is marvelously uniform and flexible, (1/2 inch is even more so) but it has no square edges. How do you know what edge (there being none) to guide your pencil along when you try to trace those curves?

I suppose you could make a block of wood with a hole in it that holds a pencil perpendicular to your paper, or plywood panel, and slide that along your pvc pipe. You would have to make some allowance for the width of this block-and-pencil slider, but it should not be too hard to calculate. It is essentially the same process as setting up a guide for your router.

Personally, I might use waste strips that I cut when I make the wood strips. That means my battens may be cedar or pine. I get my lumber from the local hardware superstore. I wait for sales and pick through the piles to find nice pieces.

The last strip you cut always leaves some waste. If it is thick enough and long enough, I use it. If all the waste stuff I get is useable only for mixing sticks (too thin, bends unevenly, etc), then I go for a nice clear strip from the stack of strips I have cut for my boat. I have no sentimentality about this strip. I draw with it, and then I use the thing somewhere in the boat. Since this is practically guaranteed to have passed my inspection for having straight edges, it stands a good chance of being the first strip I use on the boat.

The next time I need a batten will be with the next project, and I will start that by cutting more strips. This gives me a potentially constant supply.

Since I like to scarf my boards before cutting them into strips, I can end up with a batten about 18 - 19 feet long if my original stock is 10 feet long. If you are drawing plans for a 16 foot boat this would be adequate. If you want something for a longer boat, you might want a batten 2 or 3 feet longer than the design length. That helps keep the curve fair towards the ends of the batten. With a shorter batten you would work from the center to either end, then go back and make sure the center matched up well.

These strips are 1/4 inch thick and might be anywhere from 3/4 inch to 1` inch wide.

When I was creating forms for my strip canoe I enlarged plans on graph paper and needed battens to connect the dots and convert the graph into smooth curves. The 1/4 inch thick strips were a bit too stiff to make the bends easily, but some of my scraps were about 3/16ths or 1/8th, and a 4 to 5 foot section worked just fine. I tried using a cheap, flimsy yardstick, the kind that you get for free with promotional advertising printed on it, but it was too stiff.

Hope this helps

Paul Jacobson