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.