The long awaited day, my parents should be proud, I am officially a stripper. Placing the first strip requires some imagination. Anyone who is familiar with woodworking usually builds things with nice, easily measured angles (90, 45, 30, 60 degrees, etc.). Building a canoe is delving into new territory, the thing is one big continuous curve. When laying out the first strip, you want it to generally follow the waterline. If you bend the first strip around the sheer line (a tempting thing to do) the resulting canoe, although beautiful, looks a bit awkward on the water. Having the strips follow the waterline give the canoe a more sleek, natural appearance. In addition, if you follow the sheer, you will soon realize that you will need to persuade the strips to bend in the most unnatural of compound curves (= not fun). To achieve a nice line you need to attach the first strip to a few of the molds and let it gently wrap around the canoe. You need to try it to really understand it. Take your time with the first strip, because all of the other strips will be based off of this one.
The inner stems also need to be shaped at this time. To do this you need a spokeshave, getting used to this tool takes some time, but after a while the wood starts carving itself.
I only added about 5 strips the first time. Until the glue dries they are slightly flexible, even when stapled to the molds. I let the glue dry on the first strips to make a nice stable platform for mounting more strips. The strips are mounted cove side up so the glue can rest in the cove while you add another strip. The glue is simply yellow carpenters glue (IMPORTANT - before you start stripping, cover the edges of your molds with masking tape, otherwise you will glue your canoe to the mold and make more work for yourself).
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