Thanks fellas!
It's coming together nicely I think especially for not really knowing what I'm doing ;) I'm anxious to get to glassing but a little scared of it too..
The wood is Western Red Cedar and Northern White Cedar and Oak stem pieces. The hull is entirely Northern White... I'm going to have my work cut out for me I think when I get to the hull, I'm certain I didn't do as good of a job fitting things together while learning the bevel.

So I gather this wetting down ritual will do no harm and I'm obviously not the only one who thinks it's pretty awesome..
Thanks for the reassurance. As I was doing it the second (or third) time it dawned on me "uh oh... I wonder if this is a really bad thing to do".