> This is a "backwards" ripping technique. Whereby the main piece
> of wood rides against the fence, and the strips fall off.

This is the same basic idea they use in sawmills to cut planks from logs -- after each cut the log moves over so that another plank can be cut from it.

you can do a nice job of repeatable cuts if you use spacers etween your saw's rip fence and a home-made rip fence (a board) make the spacers the thickness of the saw kerf plus the desired thickness of your wood strips. If your saw has a 1/8 inch kerf, then your spacers would each be 3/8 inch thick.

Start with your homemade fence next to the saw's rip fence, and adjust things so you lightly cut enough off the plank to square it up. Then, place 2 spacers between the rip fence and the board, clamp the home made fence (board0 in place so it doesn't shift, and rip a strip off of your plank.

Repeat the process with adding shims, gradually increasing the distance between your home made fence and the saw's rip fence. by using shims you can quickly cahnge the spacing by the exact amount needed.

An easy way to make all those shims? rip a strip from one of your planks, and then cut it up into 4 to 6 inch long pieces.

Want to speed up the clamping process? Set up your rip fence to make that first 'clean-up" cut. Clamp a single stop block to the table of your saw on the side of the rip fence that is away from the saw blade. After you get a clean edge on the plank, loosen the rip fence and insert a single shim between the stop block and the rip fence. retighen the rip fence and cut off a strip.

You can either add more spacers as you move the rip fence, or, you can work with a single spacer, by moving the stop block to touch the fence, loosening and moving the fence far enough to get the spacer in, inserting the spacer, and then moving and re locking the rip fence.

Hope this helps.

Paul G. Jacobson