Trouble with 4 square milling stock

[Tom Hoffman]

Hi all: I'm building a craftman-style bed (on cover of Jeff Miller's book, "Beds") out of hard maple. The head/footboard upper/lower rails will have a finished length of about 55 inches. The side board rails will be about 75 inches. All these pieces call for a final thickness of 1 1/8". I purchased the straightest 6/4 stock I could find (slightly over 1 1/4 thick), thinking that after face jointing it flat I'd have the final 1 1/8" thickness I need. By sight, it didn't appear that it was "out of wind" any more than 1/8". For some reason, before the jointer blades touched every bit of the face, I was left with a board less than 1" thick at one end of the board and the pre-jointed thickness at the other end of about 1 1/4. What is the most likely explanation:

A.Something is wrong with my jointer (Powermatic 64 - 72" bed)
B.Something is wrong with my face jointing technique
C.Something is wrong with my eyesight (It was more than 1/4 "out of wind).

Should I be buying 8/4 stock in order to end up with 1 1/8"?
Is is common in furniture making to have to "put up with" some bow or pieces not totally flat, due to the above-mentioned issues?
The blades are sharp and positioned properly and I'm not getting any snipe.
Would appreciate any suggestions.

[Brian Hale]

I try to plan on 25% waste in all my dimensions. If I need 1.125 final stock, i'd start with 1.5" thick stock (1.125 + 25% = 1.406 round up to 1.5"). Thats what you started with. However, on pieces as long as what your working with you'll need more stock to allow for twists, bows etc.

The short answer is, yes, 8/4 would be a good starting place, or consider laminating smaller pieces.

Sorry about your "discovery"!

Brian

[Scott Banbury]

That's one reason to buy rough lumber. First, you pay less for it and second, you can rough cut your parts before jointing and planing. Rough cutting rough first results in in thicker final thickness.

[Tom Hoffman]

Guys: Thanks for the replies. I live near Sacramento, CA and have neve seen rough cut lumber for sale. Is this something one has to go directly to a sawmill to find? Is rough lumber graded? How do you know what you're getting?

[Steve Cox]

There could be several problems which I'll try to go into without being too long. Are your tables parallel to each other? A sloped outfeed table could give you this problem. If you see a bow in the board, are you jointing with the concave or convex side to the jointer? It should be the convex side. This is probably the easiest way to make wedges like you described. Your hand pressure needs to stay on the board just to the outfeed side of the blades. If you let your hands travel too far beyond the blades you are likely to make wedges. In my experience 5/4 stock is thick enough to get 1 1/8" out of if the boards aren't too bad and you should be able to see that. Most likely explanation is technique.

[Eric Apple - Central IN]

The machine could be out of adjustment on the outfeed side.

But, this can easily happen depending on your technique for jointing. It's hard to explain. But, imagine you are drawing a strait line thru the board in the same plane you are jointing. the angle at which you draw that line greatly influences how much stock will be left on either side of the line. When jointing, the wood on one side of the line will be cut away.

Sometimes you need to start with the piece concave, sometimes you need to start convex. Sometimes you need support the board so the peak in the bend is on the table and only the peak is taking cuts for the first couple of passes. Other times, you need to cut the really bad spots off the ends first and then joint the entire piece.

So when you look at a bent board where the final dimension is critical you must decide where to start jointing at. This isn't always at an end with the end of the stock held flat on the table.

Also, don't push down hard enough to bend the stock.

Hope that helps

[Scott Banbury]

Tom,

Retail sellers will most often not sell rough as part of their markup/margin is stealing 3/16 - 1/4" of your wood to make it look pretty in the rack.

Rough lumber is graded the same as s2s--all the defects that effect grade are visible in the rough lumber as well.

You'll find rough at the sawmill, a concentration yard (commercial kiln) and it's available through most large mail order/internet dealers. You may also look for local brokers, though they'll probably not want to deal in quantities less than 500bdft.

I second the previous suggestions about creative jointing. I

f I'm jointing a piece that has significant bow to it I'll knock 5-6" off the tail end before running the whole length. This will help keep you from making the leading ege too thin which is the inevitable result of feeding the leading edge through multiple passes from the get go.

[Ellen Benkin]

There should be a commercial lumberyard in or near Sacramento that sells rough lumber to professional cabinet makers and other woodworkers. I'd check the yellow pages or call a cabinet maker (also from the yellow pages) and find out where he gets his lumber. Once you buy from a real lumberyard you will never go anywhere else!

[Steve Jenkins]

A couple things to reinforce. One is to rough cut your stockl to an inch or so longer than your final. It's easier to joint shorter pieces. Don't go too short though.
When jointing, look at the board and think about how you would straighten it with a hand plane. You would probably start by taking down the high areas first then take longer and longer strokes to finish off the full length. Do the same with your jointer.
I quite often will place the board on the jointer such that I can remove some stock from the middle or toward one end if there are high spots. I might make several partial passes in different areas before going for a full length cut.
Of course experience and caution will dictate how you do this.

[Joseph N. Myers]

Guys: Thanks for the replies. I live near Sacramento, CA and have neve seen rough cut lumber for sale. Is this something one has to go directly to a sawmill to find? Is rough lumber graded? How do you know what you're getting?

Tom,

Try www.woodfinder.com! They will list different types of sellers in your area including rough lumber.

Regards, Joe

[Tom Hoffman]

Once again, the SMC community is there to help. You guys are fantastic! Just one more question: What is the best way to check the "co-planar-ness" of the infeed and outfeed tables? I suspect raising the infeed to the elevation of the outfeed, then laying a straightedge across them, but what can I use for a straightedge that spans the entire 66 inches? What would be considered acceptable tolerances?

[Bart Leetch]

You may do ok at wood finder I didn't.

After calling around & checking with several listings at wood finder & mail order listings I called my local lumber yard & found out they could order ruff cut white oak & I got 100 BF @ $2.51 a board ft. & picked it up less than 2 miles from home. So use your phone & call around locally you might be pleasantly surprised.