Thanks for all the advice everyone. My partner and I spent some time on Saturday getting our system set up and practicing for adequate clamping to minimize vibration and guiding to maximize the straightness of the cuts. The clamping and getting a finer toothed plywood blade together made the amount of tearout acceptable. We'll be scarfing so some of that tearout will be further torn out anyway. When it comes time to cut out the actual pattern pieces, those edges will be filleted, so I think the perfectionist in me has quieted down. I may still try the tape method though to see if that helps.

On Sunday we got our two 48" pieces cut and the two 96" pieces trimmed to size. Still need two 65" pieces but may wait until we've scarfed the others to make sure we don't mess up and need more length.

This week I'll work on sharpening up my plane and maybe make a fairing board for sanding. Then this weekend we'll try out our scarfing skills.

This is definitely fun. And someday it will actually look like a canoe, I hope.

Patsy