: Hummm... what other "ribbon like" materials are available that
: might be suitable?

it seems that every board I rip into strips seems to leave me with a piece that is far too thin to use as a strip. This waste piece might be anywhere from 1/8th inch thick, to under 1/32nd. It will bend easily, and could probably be held onto a form with 3 small dots of glue (hot melt or otherwise) -- one at the middle, and one at each end.

It is the same wood as the strips, so sanding it off is not a problem. With just three spots holding it to the form, the form should tap out easily.

If you had excess funds in your budget you could buy readymade wood banding, a veneer strip designed for putting a custom edge on plywood. Usually this stuff comes with a heat setting adhesive and you use a clothes iron to activate the glue and bond the strip to your board's edge, but I'm sure it is available with no adhesive.

A sheet of posterboard could be carefully slit into thin strips which would be uniform in thickness, flexible and about as strong as a wood strip. Again, just a few spots of glue to hold it on the edge of the form, and it will detach easily. Very easy to find this stuff. Only a few minutes to slit it if you use a straight edge and a sharp utility knife.

You could also make a material that would shear easily and apply strip of this to the edges of your forms. For example, two sheets of heavy paper that were barely glued together. Assuming the sheets were 24 by 36 inches, you could run a bead of paste, mucilage, or Elmer's glue every 2 or 3 inches apart. These glue lines would be parallel to the 24 inch side, so you would have about 11 glue lines if you spaced them 3 inches apart. By slitting the paper parallel to the 36 inch side, and making the slices 3/4 inch wide, you would get 32 strips (using a knife there is no waste or kerf) that were 36 inches long, flimsy as all getout, two ply, and bonded in some very small areas. Glue thes to the edges of your forms with a few dabs of hot glue, or rubber cement, and if the hot glue doesn't release easily enough, the (barely) laminated paper will shear when you bang on the form. The double-layer paper has a negligible thickness, so you don't need to make your forms smaller to compensate.

But after all this is said and done, there are still other ways to hold the strips in place without the hot glue. You might be better off spending the time making a few dozen "clamps", or use bungee cords, duct tape, or scrap strips and screws or nails to secure your strips to each other while the glue dries. All of these last methods should be able to hold the strips on better than the hot melt glue in areas where the strip is subjected to severe twisting.

hope this helps.

PGJ