I am not much more experienced than you are, but the advice I received from someone's website, and the advice worked well for me, is to use heat to bend, twist or whatever your strips before trying to glue them in place. They should press into place with little force before you actually put them in place with glue / clamps / staples etc. There are several ways of applying heat, some use a heat gun, I use a modified steam iron. I used flat edged strips fitted with a block plane, and with care and attention, fitting this way can be made quite precise. I haven't tried bead and cove.

Good luck,

Allan Edie

: Working on my second build (so I am far from experienced) and with
: this one I am cutting some stripes into the deck. The front deck
: is not peaked, it has a general roll to it which seems pretty
: manageable. However, my strips are curving, climbing, dropping,
: twisting, etc., and getting all these tightly fitted with no
: gaps is a bit of a challenge. My pattern has the stripe growing
: in size from a point at one end to about six inches on the
: other.

: I've started at the end of the stripe that is narrow and am working
: my way toward the wide end. Is it easier with cove/bead or flat
: strips? How concerned should I be with the little gaps? How much
: will they fill in when I sand it down? Do I just plan to tape
: and fill my gaps afterward or do I just need to slow way, way
: down and be as careful as I can about making sure everything
: looks perfect prior to sanding? Basically, what is the trick to
: getting good tight fits with all these strips?

: Thanks!
: Tyler