The
: epoxy sure did darken what I thought was a light brown wood and lighten
: the wood filler I used to fiil some gaps. I now have a few racing pin
: strips where I thought I did a good match of colors.

Steve
I understand your frustration. On my hull I tried wood filler with sandings mixed in and it turned almost white in spite of my dark red cedar dust. I dug that out and filled again with epoxy thickened with dark cedar dust and that turned so dark that it looks awful. Now I'm working on the deck and I'm more careful about cracks! I found that mixing the right color of sanding dust with Lee Valley glue works just right. It dries exactly the color of the saw dust. Their glue doesn't wick into the wood like Elmer's does so its sandable. I have yellow cedar dust for the trim and dard red cedar dust for the rest of the strips. I haven't completed the deck so I'll have to wait to see how it looks with the fill coat of epoxy on it.

Congrats on a beautiful hull.