Milling rough lumber

[Rob Holcomb]

I use the same method (router sled) as Michael Heffernan uses except once I have one slide flat using the sled, I do the other side in my planer. Then I continue with the planer, alternating sides until the boards are about 1/4" thicker than what I need the final thickness to be. Then I set them aside for a few days just in case the wood wants to do some more moving. If they do, it's back to the router sled followed by the planer to get to final thickness. Nothing worse than bringing boards down to final thickness and then have them bow, warp or twist.

[Loren Hedahl]

I use a modification of the hand plane method, substituting a power plane.

Mine is the smaller, less expensive Bosch model with just a single replaceable carbide blade. I doesn't give a nice cut with a sheen that a hand plane does, but that is hardly necessary at this stage.

What I do is mark the high spots with a pencil or chalk using a straight edge to find them. Also use winding sticks to find twist as previously mentioned.

Then, just knock them down with the power plane. Perfection is not needed. The board just needs to be flat enough to make my bench top planer happy.

Incidentally, this is not something I thought up. I seem to remember seeing it on this forum several years ago. But it works for me and I seldom use my jointer any more.

[Frank Drew]

What I do is mark the high spots with a pencil or chalk using a straight edge to find them. Also use winding sticks to find twist as previously mentioned.

Then, just knock them down with the power plane. Perfection is not needed. The board just needs to be flat enough to make my bench top planer happy.

Exactly, you're creating a reference surface, not a finished surface.

[James G. McQueen]

If I only had a 6" jointer and wanted to keep widths wider then 6" then I personally would rip the wider board down the center. I would face joint and edge joint and plane pieces 1/8" heavy and then glue up piece exactly as they came apart.( be sure to get joints as close as possible) After the glue dries I would plane to my finish size. You might be surprised how close the pieces will match.I've used this quite a few times.

James

[Mark Kosmowski]

If we handplane just to make reference surface to feed into thicknesser, then we can suffer a little tearout while handplaning? Meaning, is it ok to use a 62 for this task?

[David Nelson1]

Originally Posted by Matt Day
If you have a 6" jointer and an 8" board, you can remove the guard and joint 6" of the board and let the 2" un-jointed piece hang off the side. Bring it to your jointer but place a piece of 1/2" ply under the 6" jointed section. This will create a flat surface on the bottom of the planer so you can plane the top parallel to the 6" jointed section. After planing, flip the board over and finish planing the remaining 2".


Sounds good, but this rookie can't seems to get a visual. The mention of the planer twice with the 1/2 plywood makes me think your going to the dimensional planer instead of the J/P. From what I have read, seems that most folks use the planer with the wood situated so they remove the crown from the warpage, then plane the other side parallel. Just a rookie but what is wrong with this method.

[Steve Griffin]

You are correct. Once you get a flat face it's time to go to a dimensional planer. It's just a typo--Matt meant to say "Bring it to your planer" rather than "Bring it to your jointer".

-Steve

[Bill Rogers]

Phillip,


This issue of face planing boards wider than your jointer seems to come up every couple of weeks. For the record, it's quite doable, and quite safe, to face plane boards up to just under twice the width of your jointer by flipping the board after each pass. .

.

Can someone expound upon the process of "face plane boards up to twice the width of your jointer by flipping the board after each pass"? Is the idea to flip the board over so that the opposite side is being jointed or is the idea to rotate the board 180 degrees so that the remainder of the same side is being jointed?
Also, if the idea is to joint the opposite side of the board does it matter whether or not the two jointed sides are directly above and below each other?

Bill

[Prashun Patel]

...or is the idea to rotate the board 180 degrees so that the remainder of the same side is being jointed?...

I think this is what he means. I've never got it to work perfectly, though. Many times it works good-enough.

If you have a planer, then you can flatten a wide board by jointing 1/2 on the jointer, letting the edge overhang. Then you put it thru the planer, 1/2jointed-side-down, using a sled under the just jointed-face. The planer will plane the opposite face parallel to the jointed 1/2-face (with means it's in effect JOINTING the top side. Then you flip the board the board over and run it thru the planer again without the sled. This'll remove the ridge. Confusing?

http://www.finewoodworking.com/fwnpdf/011204070.pdf

[Mike Harrison]

The first step, is to buy only flat boards. No cupping, twisting, or warping.

Many will disagree with my method, but, after purcheing the above, I just run the material through the planer taking a couple light skip plane passes at first, flipping end over end each pass, keeping the grain properly oriented. Once I have the board surface fully planed I continue with fairly heavy cuts till its at proper thickness.

I do ALL boards for a project at once so all the material is the same thickness, this helps tremendously in doing setups.

[Frank Drew]

...is the idea to rotate the board 180 degrees so that the remainder of the same side is being jointed?

Yes, as Shawn noted, that's the idea.

Let's say you have an 8" inch jointer and want to face plane a 12" board. Aiming to work on roughly half the board's width at a time, adjust the fence so that about 6-1/4 - 6-1/2 inches of cutterhead is exposed; remove the cutterhead guard (this isn't unsafe since the board you're working on will be covering the exposed knives all of the time) and face plane half the board's width along its entire length; flipping, or rotating, the board end for end, you now face plane the other half of the same side. Depending on how straight your board started out, and how heavy a cut you're taking, you might have to make multiple passes, flipping end for end after each pass, to get the board flat enough to go planed-face down in your planer.

Keep in mind that the face-jointed surface done this way doesn't need to be perfectly even and smooth and might have a slight ridge along its centerline where the cuts overlapped -- don't worry about that, what you need is a reference surface for the planer, and any imperfections will be corrected by the latter machine once you've done both sides.

This took longer to explain than it is to do, and it's a very common procedure in the trade. Using a planer sled works but is hugely fussy and time consuming in comparison, and gives no better end results.

Hope this helps.

[Steve Griffin]

Yes, as Shawn noted, that's the idea.

Let's say you have an 8" inch jointer and want to face plane a 12" board. Aiming to work on roughly half the board's width at a time, adjust the fence so that about 6-1/4 - 6-1/2 inches of cutterhead is exposed; remove the cutterhead guard (this isn't unsafe since the board you're working on will be covering the exposed knives all of the time) and face plane half the board's width along its entire length; flipping, or rotating, the board end for end, you now face plane the other half of the same side. Depending on how straight your board started out, and how heavy a cut you're taking, you might have to make multiple passes, flipping end for end after each pass, to get the board flat enough to go planed-face down in your planer.

Keep in mind that the face-jointed surface done this way doesn't need to be perfectly even and smooth and might have a slight ridge along its centerline where the cuts overlapped -- don't worry about that, what you need is a reference surface for the planer, and any imperfections will be corrected by the latter machine once you've done both sides.

This took longer to explain than it is to do, and it's a very common procedure in the trade. Using a planer sled works but is hugely fussy and time consuming in comparison, and gives no better end results.

Hope this helps.

I'm sorry, but I still don't understand. No amount of imagination on my part and understand how this method could flatten a twisted board. Seems like you would have a board with two separate flat surfaces with no reason at all why they should be coplaner. In fact, it's easier for me to visualize producing two flat surfaces that are worse than if you did nothing...

-Steve

[Frank Drew]

Steve,

For any method of flattening to work, somewhere within the warped board there has to be a straight board as thick and as wide as you need; if the board is too far off flat and straight then no method of jointing/planing/cursing will work if you want to keep the board in its original width.

But for a board that's just somewhat in wind (twisted), prior to starting the flattening process you'll need to have sighted along the board with winding sticks to see where the high points are -- usually diagonally opposite corners -- and concentrate your face jointing on those areas, or maybe use a hand plane or power plane to knock the high spots down a bit before face jointing.

For boards that are less drastically warped (simply cupped or bowed or crooked), then it's easier to salvage that straight board that's hiding in there somewhere.

Unlike Mike in KC, despite my best efforts I still ended up every now and then with boards that weren't perfectly straight and true; I had a 12" jointer but from time to time worked with even wider stock and I didn't want to rip them to narrower widths unless absolutely necessary, and this method of face jointing that I've outlined worked fine, within the parameters I set out above (i.e. the board can't be totally fubar.)

[David Nelson1]

If you have a 6" jointer and an 8" board, you can remove the guard and joint 6" of the board and let the 2" un-jointed piece hang off the side. Bring it to your jointer but place a piece of 1/2" ply under the 6" jointed section. This will create a flat surface on the bottom of the planer so you can plane the top parallel to the 6" jointed section. After planing, flip the board over and finish planing the remaining 2".

Just a safety reminder, but you do have to remove the blade guard so if you usually work with it on you should use extra precaution with it off. Much easier and better than a planer sled IMO.

OK I got the picture now. I bought 400 BF of reclaimed 100 year old oak which is way wider than my jointer. I have been passing it through the planer 1/64 @ a time to see the what the wood looks like. With an 24 inch machined straight edge, everything that has been milled is dead nuts flat. So...... I guess I'm still confused which technique is better/correct.

[Steve Griffin]

OK I got the picture now. I bought 400 BF of reclaimed 100 year old oak which is way wider than my jointer. I have been passing it through the planer 1/64 @ a time to see the what the wood looks like. With an 24 inch machined straight edge, everything that has been milled is dead nuts flat. So...... I guess I'm still confused which technique is better/correct.

I believe you are the only woodworker in 100 years to pass 400 BF oak boards through a planer and get a stack of flat lumber.

Recently I ran 200 BF of quarter sawn white oak about 50 years old through my shop. Without the jointer, it would have been a disaster. Actually some where 15" wide for a table top and I used the sled method for those. But still, even as nice as a pile of lumber this was, I had plenty of warps and twists which needed to be taken out.



-Steve