: Looking at the plans it looks like a tought twist. Have you tried narrower
: strips at the sheer, say 3/8" or 1/2" wide?

mike's idea of narrow strips will do it for you.

a related method i've used in order to keep strip colour/grain integrity is to only split the strip into 2 or more pieces using a razor knife only in the twisty areas. like the centre area would be one piece, then splitting it at first difficult form and then if more radical twists comes up split those 2 also so you'd have 4.

by using the razor knife, the basic width of the pieces is the same as the whole. use metal straight edge with careful cutting by multiple passes so grain doesn't throw yr blade off.

another related way would be to put long long partial scarf cuts across say 3/4 of the strip over say 2 ft.

another would be to split the ctr area say in 3 w/ scarfs across inside 2 pces of the strip, sand lightly to dimension.

-mick