Hi,

I noticed you stripped your hull with 11 stations and it looks real good, I don't see any staples either. I used 19 stations and didn't think they were too many, wonder if it was easier or harder for you to strip with 11 stations and if you used 1/4" strips or thinner ones. From the looks of the photo I sure can't quarrel with your using 11 stations, I am just curious if it was easier
because it was less to line up with and the strips just did the rest (not that easy, but you know what I mean:-). Also I found that in my quest to do a "good" job of the steaming on the tail I put too many pre bent small strips on the tail piece when I should have left about half of the tail strips as "full" strips. I should have started my "full" strips lower. Now I can see that 5 or 6 strips
from the keel on down (or up on a right side up boat) should be "full" ones. I have only 3 full ones before my "joint" starts and because of the extreme angle of the strips joining at that point it leaves 3 strips with a less than attractive joint. I ended up "butting" strips that should have been continuous (These strips weren't as extremely curved as some of the bigger ones but were
still too curved .... I thought, to do with out steaming and hence could not be "full" end to end strips) Anyway I hope you can follow my poor explanation, I was wondering how your tail joint came out. Mine is structurally good and on the top 1/3 and bottom 1/3 it is great looking, but in the middle part of the joint I had too much end grain and glue damage to make a pretty joint, I ended up filling it smooth there and after it has a good coat of epoxy and sanding I plan a little "artistic" painted curved "accent" there, ha, ha. Not complaining, just learning and getting more experience .... thought it would be fun to compare a few notes, like your strong back is looking just like mine, but the span between your 2 stands in the middle looks to be around 9' or more... wow ! I also used top quality (5/8") ply for the strong back and used plenty of 1 1/4" course drywall screws to put it together, but I found that even that well built strong back needed more support than the 2 stands Rob suggests ( I built those
too, to use for ripping the strips and for holding the hull while I do the deck). I put mine on 2 - 4' aluminum "horses" each starting about 2' in from the end and leaving an unsupported span in the middle of 6' or so. Then becuase it was so easy, I put a support 2' X 4" from the floor up to the strong back to cut even that span down to only 3'. I had the horses anyway and it was nothing to throw a 2" X 4" "leg" in the middle. This is more support than is required of course, but it did make an absolutely solid support when I was finished bracing it. I noticed that before I did this that even my well built strong back had quite a bit of "flex" to it before I had it well supported. Any way just a little curiosity and looking to see how it goes with you Wow those twists and turns on some of the bow strips were sure fun weren't they ?? Thanks for the photo, it was a little strange to see "My Boat" sitting in your garage ....