From logs to flooring

[steve joly]

well i hear where you are coming from for sure with the McMantion fad of late for sure. I wonder how well a jointer with a power feed works to straighten bords?
the way jointers differ from a planer really is only in the fact that next to no pressure is applied to the wood in the down direction. This is so you DONT take the bend out of the board before it hits the jointer blades in this way the tool takes the hi spots off the board leaving you with a board that sits flat with no pressure.

kudos to ur awesome project you will leave it behind for a long time and thts worth a LOT!

My bigger is better comment was referring to the 1 hp power feeder vs the 1/4 hp feeder.

I think you are thinking a little different than I do regarding the difference between the jointer and the planer. The way I see it is the difference between the 2 is the reference surface to the cutter head. On a planer the reference surface is your table with the cutterhead opposite it so it will make anything that passes through it the same thickness. With the jointer the reference surface would be your outfeed table / fence. Therefore if your powerfeeder is positioned over the outfeed table it works very well. Not every board is going to be straight in one pass and it is not a replacement for working by hand on a difficult board. However the safety and speed are worth it with a project like this. Especially when every board that was really warped got cut in half before ever going onto the jointer.

For my purposes I will eventually have a powerfeeder that stays on my jointer, I was thrilled how well it works, that is not to say I will never spin it out of the way to do a board by hand.

Steve

[steve joly]

On a smaller scale, I just purchased a Pink Ivory log. It has been drying for over 10 years. I plan to saw it into 8/4 material. This will be the first time I have sawed a log up and I am nervious about it as the log was expensive and this is my first time doing anything like this

There is nothing to be worried about it is a really fun process! Just be aware how little yield you will end up with, and if you want true 8/4 talk to your sawyer about what he should mill it at, my boards were 1.125 a 1.25 and they ended up at .8. I think I could have reasonably counted on having them clean with .25 of waste but I had way to much to assess each board so everything went through the planer the same number of times to end up exactly the same.

[Mark Woodmark]

Thanks Steve,
I plan to saw the stuff myself. I need pieces 1-3/4 thick. After reading your post I may saw them more than 2 inches thick to start

[Richard Coers]

On a smaller scale, I just purchased a Pink Ivory log. It has been drying for over 10 years. I plan to saw it into 8/4 material. This will be the first time I have sawed a log up and I am nervious about it as the log was expensive and this is my first time doing anything like this

10 years in log form? Isn't it filled with cracks?

[Mark Woodmark]

Man I hope not, from the pictures I have seen it looks pretty solid. It is 26 inches long by about 9 inches in diameter. If it is not solid, I will be filling a lot of cracks with epoxy. I plan to make a box out of the stuff, so some sort of colored epoxy may add to the boxes beauty. What I am doing is a first for me. I may end up with a $400.00 firewood log

[Ben Martin]

Great job Steve, quite an accomplishment!

Ben

[Colin Helms]

Thanks Steve,

Now to try and make something to fit my Griz.

Colin

[James White]

Hi Steve,

I did the same thing as you are doing. Only I wound up only doing about 700 sqft out of 2400 sqft and using the rest of the lumber for furniture. Never could I imagine how much work it would be. That said, that floor is the best looking floor in the house. I dyed it Mission brown with Transfast dye. It looks really good!

What part of CT are you in? I am up by UCONN Storrs.

James