: Chas, Twevle foot long lumber is plenty. I use eight to twelve foot long
: white cedar for most of my boats and they turned out really nice. what I
: do is cut the boards into three inch wide lumber. This I will plane to 3/4
: inch thick and set aside until all the lumber is cut. I use three inch
: wide boards for a few reasons. They are easy to handle for cutting into
: strips. The thickness planer does not have to work as hard. My ten inch
: Craftsman Table saw can cut 3 1/4 inches when I have 5/4 lumber. And when
: using a thin kerf blade I get eight strips of wood just a 32nd over 1/4
: wide that will be planed to 1/4.
: After you cut the small boards, take the eight pieces and tie them together
: with elastic band. This will keep all the wood from the same board
: together. This allows you to but the edges together for a near perfect
: joint. Just flip the one strip over and the joint will match. Keeping the
: bundles separated will allow you to colour match both sides of the hull
: and you can put two strips on either side of the boat that are almost the
: same. Hope this is of some help. Rgards Erich.

Erich - Thanks that was extremely informative. Apart from infeed and outfeed tables to support the 12' x 3½" lumber do you have any special table-saw set-up or will the standard contractor saw / fence do the job?

You didn't mention whether you routed the strips with beads & coves.

I checked-out my local hardwood supplier and the only WRC boards he has in 12ft lengths are 12" wide and already milled to about 11/16". There were probably only about a dozen planks and not too many were the same color. I'll have to search NJ!

I saw your pictures posted in reply to the question of materials for the strongback & stations - yours look pretty impressive - what are the materials?

Thanks

Chas