> I have several clear white cedar boards in the rough, 8 to 10 feet long, 4
> to 12 inches wide, and approximately 1 inch thick. I plan to plane these
> to 3/4 inches thick. My question: what is the best/safest method to rip
> these into 1/4 inch wide strips for kayak building? I assume this is
> obviously a job for the tablesaw. If so, what's the best way to do it; do
> I need a jig?

Robert,First I would recommend you pick up Nick's book, either direct or from Amazon.com. He shows great setups for tablesaw ripping and covers all the other aspects of Kayak building. My recommendation is,if you have access to a bandsaw, go that route. It's working beautifully for me - after some experimentation. Much finer kerf than I think you can get with a tablesaw.I picked up an 8ft blade from American Saw (Sawsonline.com). Now you could hack through their pages all day because they start at 25 ft but if you look up at the command line you will see they are bringing down 10 at a time and you will also see the offset it is currently at. Just change the offset to 300 and you will go straight to 8ft blades or whatever - you get the idea. I bought an 8ft/.5"/.025mm/6 teeth per inch blade and it's perfect. There's a really good tutorial at Highland hardware on setting up.The main tip is this. You have to cut the direction the saw wants to go. With my blade that means setting the fence at a slight left to right angle. It's 1/4" away at the blade but opening up slightly after it. I'm ripping 7' Redwood and it's doing a great job. I'm only using a 3ft fence! I have the saw set up 6ft away from my shop vise and in the jaws I have a "T" made of two short 2x4 pieces.It's just nailed together and bent forward slightly to receive the plank as it completes. Thus the plank comes to rest between the table and the vise.One other thing.When ripping I keep a steady pressure against the fence about 1/2" behind the blade with the left hand while pushing through with the right.This feels right. Good luck with your sawing whichever way you go. Three-fingers McCool.