Hi Brian, Charley Dean here.....

Jeff and myself have nearly completed our second boat. Our first came out very well and we are proud of it (it was built for my wife Debbie and she just loves it). We cut the strips ourselves from western red cedar, took about a day.

For our second boat we ordered strips from Classic Boat Kits. The price of our wood went from ~$70.00 US (+ 10 man hours valued @ $20.00) totaling $270.00 to ~$350.00. The coloring of the cedar is FANTASTIC!!. When sanded down to 120 grit the wood iridesces much like fish scales in the sun, reminds me of the effect you see on the back (bottom) of a good violin.

The folks at Classic Boat Kits are very pleasant to deal with and I believe that they hand picked the strips for us.

*Also...they have clear pine bead and cove in 16 foot lengths. We used this for accent strips and found it to be much more attractive than anticipated, again the iridescent effect. We are considering building a boat using this as the primary material.*

On the minus side Classic Boat Kits can not take credit cards and there is a delay as the packages go through customs (Canada to US). This became a significant time loss to our project. This can be avoided by ordering well in advance.

In conclusion we are pleased with the product and would do business with them again, but take into account the delays involved in snail-mail payment and customs delay and order a full 30 days in advance of the desired delivery date.

Charley Dean, Carson City, Nv