Today we finally finished the work on the strips. I've been out of town on two different trips, and Jon has had his own issues to worry about, so the kayak took a back seat for awhile there. Hopefully that will change now. This picture is of the finished strips. Jon and I used the same style jig on the router to cut the coves (or flutes) as we did the beads, so I'll spare you photos of that. However, we did all of the work on the strips at Thaine's house, and had to transport the strips, somehow, to my house and also to Jon's house. The strips are so small and light, we needed an easy way to bind them together for the trip to keep them from flying about. Jon and I figured that plastic wrap — your typical kitchen-style plastic wrap — would do the trick. We grouped the strips by wood type and then wrapped the strips on the ends and in the center.

After wrapping the strips, we placed the bundles on Jon's truck. This is a picture of Jon arranging things. Jon ended up loading all of the strips on the left side of the rack, and then binding them together. I took a few pictures of that, but it was pretty dark and the photos did not turn out that well, so I haven't posted them.

The strips at home with the boat. Finally. I've got a few more things to do before I begin the stripping process, but I'm much closer now than I used to be.

A view from the bow. Don't mind the dirty clothes on the washing machine.