I recently gave in and bought a cheap planer and now regret not doing it 10 years ago. Now that I have it I am playing around with cutting solid hardwoods in my laser rather than plywood for some of my nicer items.

Right now when I am testing my ideas out I am planing solid 1 1/8" rough cut lumber down to 1/4" to get something I can cut in the laser. Which means I am throwing away about 75% of my lumber and also uselessly putting extra wear on my planer and blades. Can anyone suggest a way to reduce my waste?



I have a cheap bandsaw that isn't capable of resewing 6 inch boards, I think the thickest it can do is 3 1/2" but even then it lacks power and blade tension. I have also tried splitting boards on my tablesaw by cutting to the center from one side then cutting to the center from the other side which isn't something I would want to do too often. The next time I go to the mill I will see if they can specially cut thinner boards for me but for the small volume I will be using I doubt it.

I have even though of buying logs, cutting them into 18 inch lengths, splitting them then hefting them into think planks I would then dry and plane to the size I need. This would be the cheapest method but the most labor. It would also guarantee everything I got was quarter "sawn"