You are right, it is a lot of work but what I will do IF I do this will be to leave the strips on the forms...actually I would probably do it as a wood-n-canvas and cover that with pack cloth (much cheaper then glassinbg something that might not work, that will give me an idea if the size would work, and if it wont work for me it would definatly work for my 10yr old or any other of the boy scouts. I wouldn't have to totally fabricate the plans either I have a set comming for wood-n-canvas and I would start with slightly modifing the station pieces to be a bit wider and shortening the whole thing.