straight-line rip of long boards on cabinet saw - looking for ideas

[Kent A Bathurst]

The desktop slab will be 9' long finished; I want to mill 10' boards to allow for removal of the inevitable snipe I get when planning long boards.

You have an issue that needs to be addressed, Scott. Snipe does not need to be "inevitable". What planer are you driving?

But - I always go an inch or so long..............but not a foot.

[Jon Grider]

Snap a chalkline on either the convex or concave side, use your bandsaw to carefully cut to the line, then clean up the bandsaw cut on your jointer. Just another option assuming you have a bandsaw.

[scott vroom]

Yeah, well, my friend -

At which point you get an official You Suck from me.

I remember when you first showed up here and went down this rabbet hole some years back, and had a zillion+ questions. And now look at you.

Good on ya, brudda.

.....and what a long, strange trip it's been

[Rick Potter]

How about an aluminum extrusion. When my solar was put on, I talked the installer into some 21' extrusions they use to rack the panels. Haven't used it for anything yet, but it sure looks straight.

Maybe if you see someone doing an installation, they might have some extra you could get cheep. Cut it to 10'...a few screws......

Rick P

[Phil Thien]

Looks like it worked well, Scott.

This sort of problem reminds me of a trick I saw in the tips section of Fine Woodworking a long time ago. This guy had a piece of aluminum channel about 24' long that he stored above his table saw using some sort of hoist. Within a couple of minutes he was able to lower this real long fence down to the saw, attach it to the actual fence, and then rip wonky material up to 12' long. When he was done, he just lifted it back up to the rafters (or whatever).

[Chris Padilla]

Bring the boards to my house as I have both a track saw AND a large jointer.

[John Coloccia]

You have an issue that needs to be addressed, Scott. Snipe does not need to be "inevitable". What planer are you driving?

But - I always go an inch or so long..............but not a foot.

re: planer snipe
If you maintain a bit of upward pressure when feeding the board, until the board is halfway through, and then maintain a little upward pressure on the outfeed side until the board is finished, you'll find that the vast majority, if not all, of your snipe disappears. A large part of snipe if the board angling into the head slightly when both rollers aren't engaged, or when you have a long board who's weight is significantly fighting the rollers.

Anyhow, personally I would have taken the board to my local mill and had them straight line rip it. Maybe I'd even have them just rip it to final size.

[Jim Andrew]

Straight line ripping boards was one of the reasons I bought a slider last winter. Would like to have got a bigger one, but got the 79" stroke slider. Use a clamp to hold one end of the board, and hold the other end as I feed the board through. I can now go directly from the tablesaw to the glue table for panels. Too bad I couldn't get the 8' slider, but it is more than I was willing to spend.

[Ed Weiser]

Hi Scott,

Where in Central Oregon are you headed? We love it here in Sisters. Great place to retire!

[scott vroom]

Hello Ed,

We're heading to Bend, right down the road from you. We love Central Oregon and are excited to be moving close to our son who is a general contractor in Bend.

[Ed Weiser]

Scott, you will really enjoy Bend. I will tell you, though, that quality used machinery here is tough to come by and that I have either found some items in Portland or have had to buy new. You might want to look hard before you leave CA!

[scott vroom]

Scott, you will really enjoy Bend. I will tell you, though, that quality used machinery here is tough to come by and that I have either found some items in Portland or have had to buy new. You might want to look hard before you leave CA!

Ed, I plan to haul what I have now up to Oregon and purchase new for the items I still need.

Yeah, Bend is a great area to retire. We've been vacationing there for 23 years, since the kids were toddlers. It is getting a bit crowded though......when we first visited in 1991 the population was 20K, now it's 80K. And with the State of Oregon unwilling to expand the Urban Growth Area into the surrounding agricultural lands, city housing prices are rising. We're looking at small acreage outside the city limits....most likely MUA10 or EFU zoning (ag).

[Tom M King]

Not a 10' board on a 6' jointer table...think about it.

I do it all the time. Even 16 footers once in a while, but I do have a couple of very strong helpers that are used to working with me.

[Tom M King]

I've been using incorrect terminology for describing the boards. I've been saying they were bowed when in fact they're ever so slightly crooked. They are neither bowed, cupped or twisted. in fact they appear perfectly flat and may not require any face jointing. Sorry for the confusion.

My entire focus with this thread is removing the crook from the rough lumber via straight lining and then finishing with edge jointing. Several posters have suggested using a jointer to remove crook but I don't see how that's physically possible with 10' boards on a 6' jointer bed. Roller stands won't be of any use in my situation. Once the crooked board reaches the end of the jointer table it will begin dropping below the jointer bed hence changing the plane of the trailing 7' of crooked board. If I'm missing something i'd love to hear specifically how you do this on your jointer. As far as I can see, straight lining on a saw has to be the first step in straightening crooked rough lumber.

Kent, I presently don't have a bandsaw in my shop so will use a TS sled as others have suggested (we're moving to central Oregon next year when my wife retires and I'll be moving out of my current cracker box shop to a 1,200 sq foot space and will be adding a sliding TS, bandsaw and belt sanders, and will be upgrading from my router table to a decent shaper). I guess that last bit was off topic

If any board is held down on the outfeed table, you can straighten it. If you need to take some off of each end, start the board where you need to past the cutter head, and take off what you need to with however many passes it takes. A lot of times you need to take some off of both ends, so do one end, and turn the board around. Eye it after each pass to see when you have it good enough that a few passes will run the whole edge.

I can't count the hundreds of times we've done this.

Now, I wouldn't do a whole truckload of lumber like this, but say you are doing a stack of a hundred parts that are going to get edge jointed before running through the table saw, where most of them can take a full pass. You sight each piece as you pick it up, and do what you need to with that one piece until you can make a complete pass across the jointer.

[scott vroom]

If any board is held down on the outfeed table, you can straighten it. If you need to take some off of each end, start the board where you need to past the cutter head, and take off what you need to with however many passes it takes. A lot of times you need to take some off of both ends, so do one end, and turn the board around. Eye it after each pass to see when you have it good enough that a few passes will run the whole edge.

I can't count the hundreds of times we've done this.

Now, I wouldn't do a whole truckload of lumber like this, but say you are doing a stack of a hundred parts that are going to get edge jointed before running through the table saw, where most of them can take a full pass. You sight each piece as you pick it up, and do what you need to with that one piece until you can make a complete pass across the jointer.

Might work great for smaller boards but I'm dealing with dense 5/4 10' boards that weight north of 30 lbs. In my case, straight line ripping not only will be faster but easier on the body too.