: Paul, your posting on scarfing long pieces to strip leads me to counter a
: bit. First, let me say I have gleaned more from your postings than I think
: any other contributor on the board. I am not posting to disagree with you,

Sure you are
And that's just fine with me. i lwarn a lot from other people's opinions. Sometimes I even throw out some frivolous ideas just to get others to chime in. These kayak builders are just so shy.

: I'm just thinking back to when I first started and I got the impression
: that long strips were a must. I had bought an old disassembled redwood
: sauna with 3/4" boards which were about 7' long. My experience
: stripping with these has been that it's really easy to butt joint in-line
: so long as you are careful to keep the joints spaced. My real point is,
: after I faired the hull I felt like a master carpenter! The plane brings
: these joints, which didn't look like much, into a real tight professional
: looking job.

There is no doubt that butt joints end up looking great, and by all accounts they are stroong enough to last for decades of use and some abuse. You can't ask for more than that.

But, in setting up my forms and in laying down the gunwales, or sheer lines, it was very convenient to have a few long strips which bend evenly and excede the full length of the boat. I think I could do it now with just three, but if I had 5 or 7 I could certainly put them to good use.

Ripping a 1x6 gives me about 14 strips. If I turn that into a double-long 1x3 by ripping it in half, and then making a single scarf joint, then when I rip that one board into strips I get all the full length strips I really need. If I do that to two boards then I have a few extra full-length strips which should speed up construction of the long, even, areas on the side of the boat. Shorter, square edged, strips are definitely easier to fit into areas where they need fitting.

When I needed long strips in the past I scarfed them individually from 1/4 by 1 or 1/3 by 3/4 strips. If I wanted 7, then I needed to make 7 scarfs, planing the ends of 14 strips. Of the ones I did this way, 2 shifted slightly, giving me strips that were not straight. That was a loss of about a third. All of them needed sanding at the area of the joint to remove excess glue which squeezed out. It took up a good part of an afternoon, including cleanup and setup. I resolved that I would not repeat the ordeal and finished stripping the boat with shorter strips, which as you found was perfectly easy.

When I needed long stringers for the skin on frame kayaks I was planning to build (a folder and a Putz walrus) I decided I did not want to hand plane the thicker materials for all the parts. At that time I decided to overlap the ends of two planks and just make a single, long, diagonal cut with my circular saw, going through both pieces of wood. I clamped the boards together, clamped on a straight-edge to guide the circular saw, and made the one cut. After the cut was made the two pieces matched almost perfectly. I used the plane for about 60 seconds just to take off the roughness from the cut. I was working with a 5/4 x 8 which I had ripped into two 5/4 x 4s (approximately) A bit of glue on the long cut and three clamps were all I needed. When the joint had hardened I ripped the board into my 1 by 3/4 inch stringers, with the saw cutting through the area of the scarf joint each time, and each time giving me two beautiful finished edges -- no excess glue to clean up on the two face sides! That is just what you saw when you planed your hull.

Anyhow, when you need a long strip nothing else will do. It is nice that there are more ways than one to get one.

Happy holidays

PGJ