Congratulations and have a Happy New Year with your new creation!

   Beautiful, congrats!  I am thinking of staining my next strip build.  I have used stain on S&G but never strip.  When do you apply stain, after sand/before glass?

Mark, 

thanks for the note....yes stain after it is all sanded.

i use a technique called masking...i have kind of perfected it over several boats.

step one, mask around the white wood/feature line (not stained) and apply a coat of epoxy only over the feature line.

step two, when the epoxy over the feature line is cured, mask the feature line itself (masking on top of the epoxy) and stain the surrounding wood. when staining around the masked feature lines, make sure the stain rag is sort of dry and not dripping wet.. after staining, keep making tape in place and apply a seal coat of epoxy to lock the stain in place (this is critical or else the stain will move). then remove masking tape (for thin feature lines, this step may require two passes, one piece of masking on one side of the feature line, another masking on the other side of the feature line.)

step 3, inspect work and clean up any stain that may have gotten onto the feature line. this clean up is pretty easy because if it has bled over, its on-top of the epoxy, not underneath.

step 4, glass

you can try it out on a sample piece to get a feel for what i am describing above. but with a bit of practice...can get very sharp lines.

here are some better pictures from outside today....

    Treat that boat gently!  It's ready for Okoumefest.

   That is so beautiful!!!  Were the strips that you stained blond?

   Awesome work. I hope I can find this next winter when I build my kayak. That staining technique is stunning!

Jay, 

to answer your question...their were only two colors of strips i used.  western red cedar and yellow cedar.  

hand selected yellow cedar that was pretty much 'white' is used for the accent lines.  that said, yellow cedar is typically very consistent in its light, white color.

western red cedar was used for the rest  of the boat.  western red can be all over the place from dark to blond....with typical red cedar in the middle and redish. for my western red cedar i would desribe most of my wood as in the middle with a couple dark pieces in the batch i got.  that said,  a dark stain, like the maple behrens stain i used,  tends to bring a nice uniformity to it while there is still enough variation in the underlying strips to bring some interest to the final result.

i hope that helps

h

   I was just admiring your workmanship again, and then I felt a sudden moment of alarm when looking at the final picture you uploaded.  Was I seeing a terrible crack just aft of the seat by the pink bungie cord? . . . So take that as a warning. As craftsmanship approaches perfection, it begins to looked flawed to those of us who are less proficient (and/or jealous).  ;)

   That does help!!  Thank you!  Also, was that a water based stain or oil based?  I understand that oil based doesn't work well with epoxy.

apologies for the previous mis-spellings.  the stain is the stain you can get from CLC

http://www.clcboats.com/shop/products/boat-building-supplies-epoxy-fiberglass-plywood/behlen-solar-lux-stain.html

 and for this boat i used 'medium brown walnut'

these are not oil based....and no issue applying epoxy over the stained wood when done.

   Wonderful!  Thank you!  What a beautiful boat!!!