: what's the best way to scarf short strips into long ones?

Greg - I vote for cutting the scarf. Why? Because that's how I did it!

I cut a groove in a 2x3 board to accept the strip then used a "Gent's Saw" to cut an 8:1 scarf. Once the first is done, you have a homemade miter box for cutting scarfs. On the first boat I did up shear strips in advance, but since then everything has been scarfed as I go, including gluing scarfs in the shear strips of my second stripper. I don't want to wait for the glue to dry so I glue them in position, then hit it with the heat gun to set it so that I can get going on the next strip.

I much prefer the scarf over the butt joint because they don't seem to show up as much, if you've matched wood color/grain.

jrs