: I will have to build up confidence and make a cunning plan
: before I can consider taking on a strip built project myself. In the
: meantime we seem to have heaps of well priced Luan and meranti marine
: grade ply to work out fibreglasssing techniques etc with stitch and glue.

There is no reason you can't use 1/4 inch lauan or meranti plywood, and rip it into 3/4 inch wide strips, and then use them forf building a stripper. The color and thickness of the strips will be very consistent, and you'll have no knots to content with. With a standard 1/8 inch kerf, from a 48 inch wide panel you would get about 55 strips that were 3/4 inches wide.

You'll want to go easy on sanding so you don't go through the top veneer layer, but with stips that are so even and smooth, you might not need a lot of sanding. Narrower strips, say only 1/2 inch wide, would require even less sanding.

PGJ