I laid 4-5 strips at a time on each side, put a brad in at each station thru a piece of scrap, then tied a string around the strips midway between each station and wedged scrapwood under the string to pull the strips together. Takes awhile to tie all the strings, but you end up with no staple holes between stations. Buy a big roll of non-stretchy string and hang it over the middle of the kayak so you can cut off lenghts easily.