Making the strips

Since cutting the cedar into 9/32" x 2" it has dried out wonderfully. I flipped the pieces over every other day to make sure they dried evenly. It's quite amazing how much lighter the cedar has become. The moisture reads between 5-4% .

     Now I can start making the finish strips. First I had to get them all the exact same thickness. The shop has a nice thickness sander that I used for this. The sander was pretty close to the one wall so i had to bend the wood to get it in. Once everything was sanded to 7/32" it became easy to see the light and dark streaks in the wood. This is important to me as i want to use these colour differences to my advantage.

    Next I ripped the 2" wide strips into 2 pieces. These came out to around 13/16". This took some time. pushing 16 ft lenths through the saw 360 times. (120 pieces x3) I've been keeping the pieces in groups , depending on what board they came from. This will make matching grain patterns easier.

     Then came machining the bead and cove. I bought my router bit from Lee Valley

Rather than use a 1/4" bead and cove bit and end up with really fragile, steep sides on the cove profile i went with a slightly bigger bit ( 3/8") .  I'm glad I did this.
     I quickly made up a simple shop made router table and fence. I like my design as it's super easy to make, adjustments are easy, and it's the safest way to router as the bit is completely hidden. I didn't require any feather boards either. just light pressure to keep it tight to the inside of the fence and that's it.
Perfect cove and bead all day.

    With the strips ready to go I went on to bending the stems.
As of the writing of this post I plan on only making an inner stem. I like the look of stemless construction and will use extra strips of fiberglass to give the dent resistance and strength at the bow and stern. If it becomes difficult to make the front stemless, it won't be hard to change my mind and plane down a flat spot to attach the outer stem to. But for now I plan on just an inner stem to give me something to glue the strips to.

   I hand cut the form for the stem to be bent around, made some notches for the clamps, and checked it with a piece of plastic.

     Steaming is straight forward. But with steaming cedar it helps to soak it first as the wood is non-porous. Oak and Ash steam nicely, being porous. Once steamed I quickly clamped it around the form and let it dry.