Using what I had to hand (and with a can-do attitude), I cut the strips, glued them, clamped them around the mudguard and let it sit for 24 hours.  Some had slightly separated so required more glue and clamp-age and another 24 hours.  After this I (CAREFULLY) ran the curved shape through the router table to trim it to a somewhat uniform size and use the jigsaw to trim the edges.  I sanded it a little to remove any burns from the router and even out the width a little on at some thicker spots followed  by adding a little sunflower oil to give it a uniform colour and darken the wood so any burn marks left blended in.  I had the basic dimensions now for the wood and a length for the strip.