: Has anyone here built one of Rob Mack's North Star, Shooting Star, or Fire
: Star?

Al-
I built Rob's Shooting Star. The problem with the Shooting Star is the 2 hardest parts to make, the bow pieces and the stern section, are the 2 things you build first. The bow pieces look much harder to make than they really are. I used red oak for my bow. Once the pieces of stock used for the upper and lower bow were cut and glued, the final shaping took less than an hour. A belt sander mounted upside down on a temporary workbench in the driveway worked great. I consider the stern section of Rob's Star my rite of passage into strip building. Fortunately, Rob came out with his heat gun suggestion about the time I started building my boat. Stripping the stern section went pretty smoothly in spite of stripping with western red cedar. Stripping the bow section was difficult to envision but was pretty straight forward when it came time to lay strips. If you are thinking of building one of Rob's boats, I would suggest buying his instruction manual first. I think the cost of the manual was pretty minimal ($20 to 25?) and can be applied to the cost of the plans. It will give a pretty good idea of what you are getting into.

Wes Tanaka