I use nitrocellulose on black locust with no problems and no special prep. If you want to keep the natural wood look for outdoors you could try spar...
Agree 100%. I have a Stanley #79 with depth stop (early versions don’t have one) and LN #98/99. Interestingly, although designed for the same task, ...
Butt joining the verticals with biscuits or whatever to get 10' would be fine (less than 10' if you want to be able to install it), the look would be...