> otherwise what else is there to do?

Well, you mentioned using thinner strips, and if 1/2 or 3/8 inch strips don' do the job, then you can go with 1/4 inch strips.

Actually, 1/4 inch strips are pretty decent to work with for a few reasons. They are are also easy to cut if you do a few while you are ripping your strips. Just take a freshly cut strip, flip it on its side nd rin it through the saw. Voila! More sawdust and a couple of square strips. Try them , and if they do not bend enought in the direction you want, turn them 90 degrees. Perhaps the change n grain orientation will help.

Using three you should be able to match the width of a 3/4 inch strip, and you can use 4 to match a 1 inch wide strip.

Brilliantly colored narrow strips like these are great accent pieces -- kinda like racing stripes.

Other than that, there are three more techniques I can suggest.

One: Steam bend that end of the wood strip. You don't need to do this on your forms, but steaming and bending it a little bit in the direction you want the strip to go may help.

Two: Find a strip that has warped in about the right direction. This is the blind luck appraoch to steam bending. Leave some of your strips outside on a rainy day and mother nature will provide you with some fascinating curves, out of previously straight strips.

Three: dont bother trying to make the strip bend that far. build up a wider end to the strip and use a saw to cut the curve. To do this, let your first strip go fairly sraight and extend beyond the end of the boat. If you can bend it gently , do so. Glue on a few short strips at the end, edge gluing them in the normal fashion. Lay out a line on this, and cut off the excess wood.

In building canoes there are two ways of building up the ends. One is to bend the strips and the other is to build stair steps from short strips and then trim them back. This is similar to the latter method.

Hope this helps

Paul G. Jacobson