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?

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. 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?

Make sense?

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.