: I don't like the logic of simply using a tool just because you have
: it. Why go through all the extra work of planing your strips if
: you don't need to? Why waste a couple hours of your life
: listening to the drone of a planer for no good reason? If your
: strips are all random thicknesses sue to a bad tablesaw setup
: then YES plane them. Like Rob said, you'll save yourself hours
: of labor later. BUT if you have a good set-up on your table saw,
: the strips should come off in a real uniform thickness. Even
: when I gang-rip my strips three at a time I never planed them.

: Heck, on the Neytiri Night Heron I stripped the deck with resawn
: sapele. The pieces were within 1/50" of each othe straight
: off the bandsaw. I never planed those even though I had a
: 15" planer with spiral carbides that would have sliced
: through the sapele like butter... with no tearout. I didn't need
: to. I had a new resaw blade and the bandsaw was just tuned up.

Btw, on the last stripper, the Disko Bay, I had a pile of honduras mahogany I wanted to use on the sides. Problem was that it was all about 3/8" thick stock, so cutting it was a challenge unless you really wanted to strip all the sides with 3/8" wide strips, which I really didn't want to do :)

So the set up to make these strips took several fairly tricky cuts, the table saw got used for hours. Nice wood though and glad I did it that way.

Bill H.