Don,
Heres an idea I tried out that worked pretty well.

On my first GE I started on my hull. I supported the Sheer strips with L shaped brakets that I'll describe in a minute. THis allowed me to set it up with no penetrations of the sheer strips. When it was done I flipped her over on foam pads. I took a mechanical pencil and traced the sheer on the forms.

Next I layed in the first 3 strips of the deck on each side.

Next I took a scrap piece of pine wood and made L-shaped pieces. (Actually same ones I used for the hull) And I drilled to pilot holes into the long leg of the L-shaped pieces. I made 2 L's per form

I took the hull off and put the L shaped pieces on each side of the form stations. Pulling the sheer strip into the form with the short leg of the L. THen I moved the L's up So as to support the Sheer strip to the original sheer line. As it was penciled on the form. Then I put in one dry wall screw into the L shaped bracket in the pilot closest to the mid-line. This acted as a pivot into the form. Allowing me to fine tune until I hd the sheer line pefectly on the peciled sheer line. When I I got it the sheer strip perfectly supported into the pencil line, I screwed in the second dry wall screw in.

The result was no penetrations of the sheer strips with meta. And when I mated the boat I never had to shave here and there with a plane the horisontal fit was already perfect.

Sorry I can't add pictures to this post. I'm still thumbing up my scannner

Worked out great

!RUSS