It occured to me (for future reference) that if you know which strip(s) you are going to later stain, you could glue them together by puting a coat of epoxy between them and the surrounding strips, thus sealing the faying surfaces. This would inhibit color bleed later on.

One nice thing about the RIT dye is that you can soak the wood for a week until it becomes almost completely waterlogged (saturated w/ dye), and then the color will penetrate deeply. I'll have to go cut into some of my test blocks and see how deep they're stained.

It does require a LONG drying time, so you would want to do these strips long before (maybe a season) you intend to build the boat. Weigh the strips before you start, and when they have dried enough to return to original weight, you should be okay.

> Mask the stained strip. Lightly
> With the boat on it's side, carefully
> stain it with a small brush.