Like Matt I use a finish blade. I pass the strips through a table router once for thickness. I don't trust a thickness planer with stuff that small. The WRC I get can be brittle - don't want to talk about how I discovered that - so I've stopped living dangerously and I use fingerboards and a pusher stick these days. As I mentioned on another thread I bevel the strips while still on the plank with a palm router so they're clean on 3 faces, and although the finish blade leaves virtually no marks that face goes outside.