in a long length of lumber, 8" wide and get the angle right and the surface true so they mate together? It seems like a band saw job but sliding a 20ft piece of lumber at just the right angle seems very difficult.
Not as difficult as you might imagine. Cut a couple of lengths of flooring at least as long as the scarf, stand them on edge and draw the proposed scarf line, cut on the line and plane straight and true and now connect them together to make a box or shoe that the mast timber can lay in, secure this on the mast timber precisely in position and use this guide to saw chisel and eventually plane down to without planing any wood off the guides. Re-use them for the other half of the mast timber to ensure precise angular similarity. Does that help, I am sure there are individual improvements one can make to this method . Good luck John Lilley
OK, thanks, that makes sense. I assume I can take a rough first cut on the bandsaw to minimize the hand shaving. Since I will have quite a number to do, perhaps some brass strips screwed on the tapered edges would help the jig last? Then they might act as an edge stop for a nice long hand held belt sander that reaches across the width of the lumber?
It sounds as if you've got it all in hand, any method of removing the waste easily and quickly must be a good idea. Perhaps saw cuts across the scarf terminating a little above the finish line and use a large chisel to remove these blocks of waste in one go, remembering to chisel the high side of the scarf first though to prevent the split line following the grain below the scarf line. John Lilley
