[quote=DanBerger]There is a lot of room for opinion in your question.
I would never taper a batten because I would be wearing the splinters under my skin for months--even if I was fully covered. It is also very difficult to get an even taper along a long section of the batten. However, your plan sounds like the best method if you want to try it.
I've been fortunate to get good used tapered battens in the past, so I have never tried it. There is a school of thought that you don't want to taper the bottom batten so you can really honk on it and get a big pocket.
I think if you just grind down the last inch so that it will fit in the pocket protector, you should be OK. Tape wouldn't hurt, but I don' think it would help with splitting. The best thing it would supply is protection (to the pocket) from the exposed fibers that you ground down.[/quote]
No HTML tags allowed (except inside [code][/code] tags)