I had contemplated putting in some stringers, I guess I will wait and see how rigid it seems after its stripped. I was also thinking of running some temporary ribbands along the forms, to alleviate the deflection issue when sanding thinner strips, a bit of extra work but may be helpful.

I set up the forms for the Night Heron today, and hope to cut a couple of strips off to test fit tomorrow, assuming the "minister for the interior" has no other plans for me.

As a side note, after all the time I spent trying to locate some reasonably priced WRC, I found an advert in todays classifieds for 42mm x 19mm boards for $2000 per cubic metre, go figure. The gent that has it for sale has done quite a lot of work with NG Rosewood, his opinion is that it can be a very inconsistent, very light and brittle in some parts and extremely hard and heavy in others.

Thanks again Bill.

: Afterthought (happens alot it seems lately) you might try using internal
: stringers glassed in after you skin the inside. Will make installing
: bulkheads a pain in the butt, but should compensate somewhat for the loss
: of stiffness. I'd use as light a wood as possible for the stringers and
: they don't have to be real thick either, perhaps the same as the strips,
: maybe 2 or 3 per side. Likely they all won't go all the way to the ends,
: don't matter.

: Bill H.