Greg:

I followed many of the posts reccomendations of using the belt sander with a block at the end to make the scarfs. I think mine was about a 4/1. I scarfed and preglued strips for the sheers (hull and deck) as well as for the centerline on the bottom of the hull. The rational was to have a straight long piece to stare your striping. I used Mahogany for the deck sheer. This was a great advantage when it came time to join the deck and the hull together. It helped to hide the seam filled with epoxy. I didn't have much of a gap, but if you were using all the same wood, the seam is more noticable.

But after that I followed the advice to "scarf as you go". That way you don't end up with all the scarfs lined up over each other. It wasn't hard to randomly put in a two scarf strip in order to spread out the scarf lines out towards the ends and to glue them in position on the previous strip.

Hope this helps...

DAVE