Darren, thanks for the kind words. As I've said many times before, I firmly believe in following the path of least resistance to the water. Everything I do is with an eye towards keeping things moving right along; few things are less fun than projects that get bogged down in tedium and turn into Michener novels.

So to answer the question, the scarfs are always done on the forms -- even the sheer strips. Keeping the joined sheer strip fair is easy; just use a couple spring clamps to fasten each end to a piece of scrap strip acting as a backer, align by eyeball at leisure, then apply clamp to joint proper. Only special concession I make to the sheer strip is to give it an honest 24 hours to cure. Most of the time. Okay, sometimes.

After that, any previous strip course provides all the the alignment template you need for the next one.

You have lots of control over *where* the scarfs fall, so don't put them in places where the strip must achieve a lot of bend or bow. Likewise, you can try not to stack up your scarf joints . . . . um, like I tend to do a lot.

In short, scarf joint are so quick and easy that I practically regard them as inconsequential and hardly think about 'em. My efforts are much more focused on keeping each new strip snug and accurately aligned to each previous one, and keeping all snug to the forms. No way am I meticulous enough to glue a scarf joint and let it cure before adding it to the boat; that's like doing everything twice, and building a strip boat takes plenty long enough to suit me as it is.