Terry,

I just finished my first scarf joints on a canoe we're building. I was scared to death. I would recommend stacking three or four pieces of scrap and practicing first. Also, read as many sets of instructions as you can to pick up little tips like planing at a 45 degree angle. Then just do it. The epoxy really will fill in any mistakes so they don't have to be perfect. The main thing is to be sure they are thin enough to be flush when glued.

I don't know how my joints are going to look when glassed and epoxied, but they came out good enough, I think. A butt joint would probably have been neater looking, but I'm glad I went for the stronger joint. I have a lot of epoxy stains on the wood and probably tried to take to much off and ended up taking off too much wood in places. It's really hard to know what you're doing the first time.

Unfortunately, you just have to jump off the cliff and do it and see how it goes. Really hard for perfectionists like me, but unless you have someone around who is experienced and can help you, that's really the only option.
I've decided that's just good enough.

Good luck,

Patsy