Monarch Marlbhead Sailboat con't

Well I finished planking the hull, and tried to sand it. I did not like how it turned out

Issues:
1. Wood thickness. Since I was being "frugal" I ordered the Paulownia wood as rough planed, not sanded. I figured I can sand it down my myself. Well without a horizontal thickness sander, the pieces I did sand all came out with varying thicknesses. I was worried about, but thought why not try. Lesson learned.

2. The balsa stripper. What a nightmare. It kept following the grain of the wood, no matter what I tried. Keeping it stationary, burring the tip of the blade, longer fence, etc. I ended up with wavy strips.

I tried to work with the wavy strips of wood, but keeping all the waves lined up. That actually worked, but I ended up wasting a bunch of wood. And I still ended up with huge gaps in the planking.

3. CA glue. I really hate using CA (super glue). I originally intended to use wood glue (Titebond III, waterproof), but I kept reading how other people just used CA and how they didn't have issues. I should have followed my original gut instincts. It just sets to fast, and getting your finger stuck to the wood get old quickly. Because it sets so fast, it caused the biggest issue...

4. Gaps and uneven planking. Dry fitting the wood I could get nice smooth, no gaps, planking, but as soon as I start gluing, things got ugly. Once the glue goes off, ripping out the wood isn't an option. Well if I didn't have issue #1, I would have ripped out the plank and tried again. But since the pieces were keyed from the stripping process it wasn't an option.

Why? Well I really want a stained, wood grain boat. That is the whole goal of this project. To make something esthetically pleasing, but functional.

As I was sanding the hull to see what I was going to end up with, I thought about just skipping the stain and clear coating and painting the hull. So I kept sanding, and sanding, and thinking, and thinking. When I got close to 90% of the hull smooth, I went checking the final hull thickness and how bad the gaps were. I just got disgusted, and called it quits, unscrewed and knocked out the profiles, and crushed the hull.

I'll start again. This time I'm going to try to borrow a friends saw and try ripping consistent and even planks.