I personally build strippers instead of s&g's, but wood as you describe in cabinet building I find a lot.  I use the side with the most beauty.  You can calm the fuzzies with a light skim coat of epoxy before you glass.  Wet sand it down to knock off the high spots, glass it, and you should be fine.  But Lazslo seems to have some real good tricks in this department.  I have learned a lot from his comments about epoxy.

KK

Rather than sanding the fuzzies, I would use a card scraper, pulling in the direction of the grain.  This will remove the standing grain without digging in, or the danger of sanding too deep.  Like KK says, after you add epoxy, and especially if you are glassing, you should be fine.

CLC sells these card scrapers:

http://www.clcboats.com/shop/products/supplies/tools/0000-SHMS0.html

Ron

   Another good way to remove hairy grain is to  sand the wood with 100-150 grit then use 220grit  after sanding to 220 use a damp cloth to raise the grain- wipe down the wood- when dry lightly sand with 220 the wood will be smooth as glass. I use this method on all my wood projects including the kayak I'm finishing.

     Yacko

 

Chris,

 

Thanks. I have been obsessing about my scarfs so much that I never really thought that it might be a good idea to have the imprinted side of the wood as the outside so I could paint over it - duh!

Best scarfing tip I found was to set the blade very shallow. I started with mine a tad deep and although I had impressive curly q's of wood coming off it did create a divott or two. And of course sharpen.

John

Thanks for all the input...  I faired the completed scarfs last night and they came out pretty nice.  Only had one small 'break-through,' and its such a narrow line I doubt anyone but me will notice.  I had used 1.5 mil vinyl sheet plastic between panels.  I decided not to tape off the panels, and instead used a combination of scraper and sander to get off the excess epoxy (not too much flow out of the joint).  I also played around with the heavy grain, and it feels like a good shot with 120 grit will knock it down enough.