: Sometimes an advantage of ripping your own strips is that the
: timber can be cheap or even free . . .

It's a long trip to a decent sawmill so I often buy fencing planks. Their only 6 ft long but they are WRC and slach cut so strips ripped off the edge have the proper grain. They are very cheap and the guys in the local hardware store will often help me pick over them when they hear that it's for a boat. I buy about 50% more than I need, so the nasty ones go on the fence in the Summer . . .

I find a skill saw is fine for ripping. Trick is to cover the bench with insulating foam and lay the plank flat; the saw cuts the foam not the bench. Tips for quality finish are a zero-clearance ply baseplate on the saw to eliminate splintering, and a narrow kerf finishing sawblade for minimum waste and a fast, clean cut. A really good blade cost about the same as a regular saw.

There's another benefit using a skilsaw if your workshop is short; using a table saw you need twice as much space as the length of the wood.