: I've been doodling with a pattern for my deck (it's a snow day here in
: Seattle ). These aren't the right proportions but it's a reasonable
: facsimile of what I'm planning. This will repeat along the shearline of
: the deck. I picked up the wood yesterday - Spruce and alternating
: dark/midtone cedar. I happened to find a very dark cedar board with swirly
: grain in it; I've never seen a board like it.

Hi Chip,

I have never built a deco strip but I look forward to it on my Shooting Star, but that's a long time away yet. Just looking at your strip and breaking it down into sections, it looks like three long parallel strips on each side, the dark pallelograms (don't know if that's what it is called) and the light one with the dot inside. I think a simple wood jig could be made to cut the pallelograms with a thin pull saw. You may want to drill the holes in a long strip rather then doing it in each individual piece because you will split a lot of those pieces unless you put each pallelogram in a holding jig while you drill. I run into dot drilling on my last boat. I bought a set of high speed plug cutters for cutting dots and on hard wood they didn't do a very good job and burned the wood. I think if I was going to cut a lot of dots of just one size I would get a carbide plug cutter. I think it will be fun making strips.

John