Traditionally, strip builders have gone to lumber yards looking for wide boards with a finished thickness of 3/4", or they buy rough sawn boards and run them through a thickness planer to make a 3/4” thick board. Then strips for building are ripped off the edge of these 3/4" thick boards.

There are problems with this method.

At the lumber yard, you never know what lengths and thicknesses of boards they will have available. If you limit your choice to 3/4" thick boards you may have very few options for size, color and grain.

Ripping individual strips off the edge of a 20' long, 8" wide board is challenging. Large heavy boards are hard to handle and difficult to keep firmly pressed against the saw fence, which will lead to uneven strip thickness. Ripping strips off one edge forces you to handle one large board repeatedly. This is difficult, tiring and is the major cause of irregular strips.

The edge of this wide board gives you only a hint of the color and grain pattern your finished boat will display. You don't have control, or a real idea of what the wood will look like on your finished boat.

These are all big disadvantages of this traditional approach to cutting strips.

A New Approach

First select boards for the grain and color on the broad width of the board.
Ignore board thickness.

This gives you many more boards to choose from.

This allows you to see the wood grain and have an idea of how it will look on the boat. Concentrate on wood beauty and not board thickness.

Next, cut the wide board face into 3/4” widths. Then turn these 3/4" widths on their side and cut 3/16” thick strips.

Taking broad boards and ripping them into 3/4” widths first, makes handling easy and cutting 3/16” strips more uniform.

Western red cedar comes in 3/4” (5/8”) 5/4 (1”) and 2x (1-1/2”) thicknesses, actual sizes in parenthesis. Cut all those boards to 3/4” widths off the broad board surface. Then the number of 3/16” strips per 3/4" piece will be your only variable.