Scarfing vs fiberglass tape joints

[marvinwus]

I have the John Henry scarfing attachment for my power plane so cutting scarf joints is very easy. What kind of joints are most people using to join the panels on the CS17?

[Kidd]

I used the butt joints like in the plans. They have worked fine so far.

[Joe Nelson CS#35]

I think real scarfs are preferable...less work to finish. BUT...make sure that the plywood is long enough to accomdate the length you will loose in the scarfing process. A lot of designers try to get every inch out of a sheet that they can. Real scarfs are a bit intimidating, so butt joints are specified. I did but joints on my CS20 and structurally they are fine. It was a bit of work to fair out the glass tape on the outside of the hull. Two layers on each side as I recall.

I am now set up for and have done scarfing. I would do it on the CS20 if building again...if it didnt mean using another sheet of ply. Scarfing the 1/2 to 3/8 (bottom) would be easy to do as well with scarfs.

[Charlie Jones]

I cut my scarfs with a small electric plane and then finish with a hand plane. Takes about 15 - 20 minutes to do four sheets of ply.

I've used a Scarfer before and it's a cool tool , but not really needed on the ply we use.

Personally I do not like the fiberglass butt joints- very hard to make them go away visually on the finished boat, in my opinion.