: Greg,

: I think there are two different issues here, depending on how you go about
: doing the scarfs.

: You are going to get a certain amount of excess glue oozing from these
: joints, and perhaps a bit of misalignment.

: When you scarf individual strips then it is probably a good idea to work with
: strips that are a bit thick, and run the double length strip through a
: surface planer to clean up the area around the scarf joint, and bring the
: entire strip down to the proper thickness.

: I prefer to scarf the boards that I will cut my strips from. I make a 2 foot
: long taper at the end of my boards, usually with a hand held circular saw
: that I guide along a straightedge. I can touch up the cut with a few fast
: swipes from a plane if there are any grossly bad areas, but usually I
: don't need to bother. It is such a large joint that it is rather simple to
: line up and clamp.

: After the glue has set up, my first pass through the rip saw removes any
: jagged edges from misaligned parts, as well as the excess glue. I suppose
: I could put the board through a jointer/planer to give me a nice straight
: edge to work from, but I don't usually have that set up.

: After that I just cut strips. Every one that comes off of these double-length
: boards has two perfect faces. Or at least they are just as perfect as any
: other spot on the rest of the strip. There may be a bit of glue on the
: sides of the strips, unless I sand it off before I rip the strips.

: Working from boards I had ripped from a beam, I think I would make the rough
: boards first, scarph them, then plane the boards to 3/4 inch, or what ever
: I wanted my strips to be. Then I would rip the strips from these long
: smooth boards and plane them to 1/4 or 3/16.

: If I either had no surface planer, or wanted to do a bead and cove edge with
: a router or shaper, then I might skip planing the boards after scarfing
: them, as the rough edges (along the entire strip, not just at the joint)
: would be removed by the bead and cove bits.

: Hope this clarifies things.

: PGJ

It does and again I can't thank you enough for the great advice. John