Yep, I would definitly recommend strips with the grain PERPENDICULAR to the wide face of the strip. I'm still struggling with fairing my Wee Lassie because of the strip with the grain oriented parallel to the face. I used a long board with 50 grit to fair which worked pretty good, and then switched to a ROS to remove scratches, but I ended up re-creating the ripples in the soft wood between rings even using a light touch. The vertical grain strips are much easier to work with. In fact, most horizontal grain strips aren't too bad, I think I just got one plank that produced some really difficult strips. I'll try not to repeat my mistake again.

Ross

> Paul, something you said didn't sound quite right to me, so I wanted to
> ask if you could check what you wrote before Addison starts cutting his
> strip and winds up with the same problem Ross recently encountered on his
> Wee Lassie. You said:

> Ideally you would want the final strips to have a grain pattern with the
> growth rings roughly parallel to the wide side. If you can obtain that by
> ripping and resawing your stock, then do so.

> I was under the impression that one wanted the strips to have growth rings
> perpendicular to the wide side. Which is why the flat-sawn lumber commonly
> available is so good for cutting strips. I took a look in Nick's book and
> saw a diagram on page 36 that seemed to confirm this. I found similar
> advise in Ted Moores' CanoeCraft book.

> Mike