sorry photos did not work I will try to add photos sorry re multiple post while i figure out how to add photos   

another photo attempt

   [url=https://imgur.com/STKiVnk][img]http://i.imgur.com/STKiVnk.jpg[/img][/url]

I will try again to add a photo link . again sorry for all the posts hope you can see with these links

bottom of deck

https://imgur.com/STKiVnk

top of deck 

https://imgur.com/Zr0utp3

top with ridge between outside strip 1/8 offset

https://imgur.com/IgdFhS9

   If you copy the above links and  do a seach you can see the photos . thank you for your patience.

Hi Caito, 

i looked at your pictures.  i think you will be fine.  not bad for a first go at this.

first, i want to confirm that you are using 1/4" thick cedar......as this gives you room to pull this into shape.

your instincts are right that you don't want to get agressive on the bottom as it will then give you less room to sand the top without it getting too thin.

so what i do on the bottom is to adress my cracks and low spots is a putty of west sytems 407 or 410.  this is a faring compound and can fill the gaps pretty easily and is easy to sand.  407 is  dark color and 410 is tan.  i keep both in my inventory and use whatever i think will work best.  the key thing it allows you to do is avoid making the wood too thin by sanding too much from the bottom.  it is much easier to sand than woodflour putty.  any other form of microballoons can do the same thing like MAS micro-balloons..

after you address the bottom, the top is better handled by sanding too keep it looking nice....and there are a couple tricks to gap filling.   my main trick for gap filling is wood glue into the joint and then sanding over it while the glue is still wet.....which can often fill the gap with a putty that is using the saw dust color of the immediately adjacent wood.   

on the 1/8 inch step, since you have 1/4 inch thick cedar, you can pretty much sand out your 1/8 inch step and you will be fine as long as there are relatively small sections where this is occurring vs the whole deck being only 1/8 inch.

i hope that helps.

h

ps...for inspiration, two of my strip builds after an afternoon paddle with my daughter.  both of these were built with only 3/16 thick cedar....and used the techiniques described above...so i have a lot of experience with this type of construction.

   answer posted above...for some reason...did not log my name.

   Nice trick re the wet wood glue and sanding the immediate area . I gave it a quick try in a small area and I think that will help in spots. Thanks for the suggestions. 

caito,

Here's your pictures displayed without chasing down links. You needed to paste the URLs (ending in .jpg) into the picture dialog box instead of embedding them between image tags.

At first I thought that the decking was the strip-built deckand thought you were restoring a 1,000 year old boat :-)

Howard,

You timed out while typing your response so the system logged you out, that's why your name was lost.

bottom

top

trying to show ridge on top of deck between long stip and others. 1/8 inch step off which is hard to see

That was meant to say the floor decking, not the boat decking, looking 1000 years old in the last picture (because of the focus). It was not a comment on the state of the cedar.

Laszlo

Good suggestions by hspira above.  One addition is that I would try filling some of the largest gaps on top with appropriately sized slivers cut from some of the leftover wood.  I have seen Nick do this successfully in several of his videos.