: Dave, thanks. This is what I'm looking for. Did your cockpit cutout
: template extend out to to the dotted line shown in picture one?
: Were you able to just lay it on the wood and trace it out? When
: I did it I ended up in mid air.

: Sherm

yes it did extend that far, my cockpit cutout template entends from halfway in front of form 8 to halfway past form 10, so like 3 feet, my pic shows the cockpit cutout freshly traced, and since I have cut it out and am re-stripping for the recessed area.
the template did not lay flat, I did my best and then made a fair curve with a thin board and a friend.
Again I am building a guillemot not a night heron so my pics are not identical to yours.
In order to get the strips to twist down from the top form I used a couple of clamps to hold strips together, bead and cove strips, and a heat gun. I pushed the strips in place while they where really hot and held them till cool, did this again and used one staple to hold them, worked great.

good luck hope this helps
dave g