: Hi,

: I have some western red cedar strips, around 40mm x 3.5mm (1.5" x
: 1/8" I think that is). Some I have ripped down to 15mm wide strips
: for a kayak, but it's time consuming and they're too thin to bead &
: cove.

Rip them in half. After you lose the kerf, you'll end up with strips about 18 mm wide. That's about 3/4 inch, and just fine for stripping. Forget the bead and cove. Edge gluing will be a bit messy, but The hull will be sturdy enough to be worked on. Put on an extra layer of glass if you wish, but it is optional.

Another thought is to put on two layers of wood. Lay up the first layer of strips, then overlap the seams with other strips which are tightly fitted. You can use staples or clamps to hold down the second layer of strips until the glue sets. It is highly unlikely you'll sand through the wood while you round the edges and fair the hull. The technique is similar to one which uses several layers of veneer, but you'll be using materials which are thicker but narrower than sheets of wood veneer. Alternately,you can strip the boat with the strip going at an angle to the waterline. The first layer might go up 30 degrees from the water line, but the second layer would cross that, and be oriented at 30 degrees down from the water line. This type of construction is very strong, and you would only need a thin fiberglass skin on the outside to keep things waterproofed.

: So for some of the remainder I was hoping to use them on a couple of S&G
: designs - being able to utilise the wider strips to form the panel shapes.
: My initial idea is to trace out the panel shapes on ply as per normal, but
: use .8mm - 1mm thick ply and epoxy the strips onto this to make a
: composite around 5mm thick. After sanding, the panels would be around 4mm,
: the standard for most S&G designs.

Well, I disagree with Bill on how hard this would be. Sounds pretty simple if you have a large flat area to work in. Nice thing is that you replace the time you would otherwise spend scarfing together plywood with the time you spend making these panels. Where do you get 1 mm plywood? That sounds about the thickness of a single piece of wood veneer. Using that as a baseYOu could roll on an even, thin layer of glue on each wood strip and just lay the things in place. Butt joints where necessary would be fine. Put a second layer of veneer on the exposed face and you have made your own solid core plywood.

Most of the pieces for a S&G boat are cut from plywood panels which are no wider than a foot. that will vary with the design, of course, but the point is that you don't need to think about gluing up panels which are 4 feet wide. With the materials you have, you can probably made materials whicha re wide enough to work with by using only 8 or 9 strips wide, and as many as it needs to get the length you wish.

If you don't work with a veneer base you can work on wax paper over a cheap exterior ply base, and just edgeglue your strips to each other. The wax paper keeps your glued up pane; from sticking to the base. The plywood lets you use staples to hold the strips in place until the glue sets. Get the edge coated with your glue, st the strip in place, and use a few staples to hold it in place. A scrap of cardboard between the stapler and the wood keeps the staples from marring or indenting the surface of the wood, and makes it a little faster to pull the staples out. Pinholes from these staples will fill in with epoxy when you coat it. Put them in a random pattern and they will be unnoticeable.

Hope this helps

PGJ