"No" wrote in message ...
OK - Thanks for everyone's input on getting my arse in gear on buying
rough stock for my next project.

I have a desire to use single boards about 13 foot long for parts of my
wainscoting project. (Horizontal rails). My jointer is only 72" long.
Neaner. Anyway - I will cut the boards about an inch or so bigger than my
final length setup some infeed and outfeed support and get a helper and
hope for the best. I am starting with 4/4 stock, jointing one face,
planing then jointing one edge and ripping to width.

My questions
Is the order correct? Cut to close length, face joint, plane, edge, rip?
Or should I edge joint, rip, face joint plane? The latter will have me
running less material through the jointer and planer, I suppose, but how
can I be guaranteed a square edge? Seems if I did do the latter I would
rip a bit wide then visit the jointer again to ensure a square edge. Any
advantage to this?

Well, sorta. It would be more pratical to cut the boards so that you alone
handle the wood when running them through the jointer. Boards 13' long are
too long to expect good results. If you insist you should build infeed and
out feed tables for the planer and those table should absolutely be
co-planar with their counter parts.
You should face joint first so that you have a flat surface to reference
against the jointer fence when you straighten the edge. The fence is not
necessary when flattening the face. From there you can either plane or edge
joint next.


OK another question - My experience with jointing and planing has been
limited to nothing longer that 6' or 8'. When working with that long of a
stock it appears that you may need to remove a lot of material in a badly
twisted or bowed board before you get it flat.

Exactly. the longer the board the more you will have to remove. Better to
cut the board as short a possible for the project to minimize the
possibility of loosing more that you want. Again even with a flat board
face planing a board 13' long is going to be pretty darn hard if not
impossible.

My stock looked pretty good
at the mill I bough it from but I would suspect even a very slight
unnoticeable bow would be shown by a decent jointer. I worried by the time
I got the board flat on one side I would not have enough stock left to
make my final thickness. So, would I be better off cutting my long rails
in half and then joining them back together when I build the rails for the
wainscoting?

YES


Make sense?

YES

I wont ask for comments on jointing techniques for long boards. I got them
searching via google groups. but if anyone has any wisdom they would like
to add here feel free.