: Guess I am not looking hard enough... I would prefer not to scarf.

: sing

Hmm.

I use short boards because theya re so easy to find, cheap to buy and easy to bring home. And then I scarf a few of them together to make longer boards which I then rip into strips. The rest of the boards I rip into shorter strips, which are perfectly fine.

A scarf is little more than a simple diagonal cut on the end of a piece of wood, which is then joined to another piece of wood with a simlar diagonal cut.

I stack two nominal 4-inch-wide boards so they overlap 24 inches and just draw a line diagonally through the overlap area. Then I cut this freehand with a circular saw -- cutting through both piees at the same time. When the short triangular waste pieces drop away I have two boards which have perfect matching cuts. Glue 'em, clamp 'em and let the glue harden before ripping perfect strips of any length I desire.

This gives me about a 6:1 scarf. If I wanted a 9 to one scarf I'd overlap the boards by 3 feet. With narrower boards I would use less of an overlap. Sometimes I buy 1x6 stock and rip it in half, then scarf the resulting 1x3's with a 2 foot overlap, giving about an 8:1 scarf. With epoxy for glue it works great.

While I usually use a circular saw for this cut I have in the past used a common crosscut handsaw, a bandsaw, and a sabresaw. In each case the scarf joint worked out just fine. It just takes longer to make a 24-inch-long cut with a handsaw, or a sabre saw, than with a circular saw. As for the bandsaw, I found it awkward to handle the boards on the small bandsaw table. If i was ripping my strips on the bandsaw I would have longer infeed and outfeed tables to support the work, and I think that would have made the attempt more stable.

The single diagonal cut is a breeze. You should try it with some inexpensive 1x3's -- which you should be able to pick up at most lumberyards for not much more than a dollar each. This will give you a bit of practice and certainly give you a sense of reassurance that the process is simple and effective.

PGJ