Planer needed?

[Dave MacArthur]

Ok Jay, a guy who makes paddles will be great to have here for stories! If you let us know where you live, by clicking up top on the Quick Links button, then Edit Profile, then down at the bottom "Where you live" type in your location, folks will be able to help you out more. Such as send you pointers on cheap good equipment they see on CraigsList, etc.. I've often seen folks offer one-time use of specialty equipment they have to a needy creeker for a project too.

Welcome,
Dave

[Paul Simmel]

Ok, this might qualify for Newbie Question of the Week: I need 1/2" thick exotic hardwood boards of various kinds, i.e. maple, cherry, etc., for projects however, some stock is only available to me in 4/4 (or 13/16"). I have no table saw therefore, will a surface planer do the trick in reducing the boards to my desired thickness? I tried my belt sander and just like I expected -- it took forever, made a dusty mess and the end result was dreadfully ugly. What about the hand-held planers for doors and warped studs and such? Will those do? I want the right tool, of course, before investing my money. Thanks a million.

You need a decent bandsaw, a jointer, and a planer and a crosscut saw. You do not need a table saw except for sheeting goods.

[Don Eddard]

Hmmm, never thought about a portable hand planer in fact, to be honest, I have no idea if they're hard or easy to use or how long it takes to remove stock.

In my experience with a handheld power planer, it's not easy to get an even surface face-planing a board. Could be the operator, but I've never had satisfactory results trying it.

[J. Z. Guest]

Jay: interesting story. Where do you live? You should consider updating your profile with that information, as it sometimes helps people to help you.

This is not the kind of paddle you're thinking of, but have you looked at www.paddlepalace.com? they sell top-of-the-line "table tennis raquets." I got one with a walnut core and some sort of plywood sheeting. The fast ones have carbon centers.

[Peter Quinn]

Being a naturally lazy individual I'm not saying I actually do this, but if you have a well tuned properly set rip saw and a scratch stock you can reasonably rip (resaw) boards of the dimensions you've indicated by hand. It is neither excessively laborious nor inconceivable. A back saw wont work because of the length of the blade. I remember watching my grandfather do it in his shop and on job sites and it goes quickly enough to be practical in some circumstances.

The saw must be sharp and evenly set to track straight. You can scratch a parallel groove on the center of the edge grain on each side of the board to guide the saw kerf. You'll need to secure the boards to saw horses and use a wedge to keep the kerf opened once you are several inches into the board.

Problem is by the time you have purchased a good saw, files for sharpening, a sharpening vise, a good saw set, planes for flattening and smoothing, stones for sharpening the plane irons etc. you will likely have invested more time and money than a decent small band saw capable of 6" resaw and a bench top planer would cost these days.

Still I can't help thinking that the effort to produce paddles entirely by hand would somehow result in a more resounding THWACK when the work is used for its intended purpose, as if all of your energies were transfered to and stored stored in the wood.

[Jay Johnstone]

Ok, good idea Jeremy. For some reason I had thought I filled in the profile info. Thanks for reminding me. I'll take care of that and I'll also take a peek at that site. Perhaps it will offer and idea or two. Thanks a lot. By the way, I guess i'm not really that much of a newbie. I've made several stands and bookcases making dado grooves with a backsaw and chisel. I just never got into big power tools like table saws because for one, I dont have the space right now and two, I kinda like doing things by hand - if I can.

Jay: interesting story. Where do you live? You should consider updating your profile with that information, as it sometimes helps people to help you.

This is not the kind of paddle you're thinking of, but have you looked at www.paddlepalace.com? they sell top-of-the-line "table tennis raquets." I got one with a walnut core and some sort of plywood sheeting. The fast ones have carbon centers.

[Jay Johnstone]

Ok Jay, a guy who makes paddles will be great to have here for stories! If you let us know where you live, by clicking up top on the Quick Links button, then Edit Profile, then down at the bottom "Where you live" type in your location, folks will be able to help you out more. Such as send you pointers on cheap good equipment they see on CraigsList, etc.. I've often seen folks offer one-time use of specialty equipment they have to a needy creeker for a project too.

Welcome,
Dave

thanks Dave, I seem to have spaced out the profile info however I shall take care of that. So am I a creeker now? That's pretty neat! I don't know how stories will fly here although I do possess a bit of writing talent.

[Jay Johnstone]

Being a naturally lazy individual I'm not saying I actually do this, but if you have a well tuned properly set rip saw and a scratch stock you can reasonably rip (resaw) boards of the dimensions you've indicated by hand. It is neither excessively laborious nor inconceivable. A back saw wont work because of the length of the blade. I remember watching my grandfather do it in his shop and on job sites and it goes quickly enough to be practical in some circumstances.

The saw must be sharp and evenly set to track straight. You can scratch a parallel groove on the center of the edge grain on each side of the board to guide the saw kerf. You'll need to secure the boards to saw horses and use a wedge to keep the kerf opened once you are several inches into the board.

Problem is by the time you have purchased a good saw, files for sharpening, a sharpening vise, a good saw set, planes for flattening and smoothing, stones for sharpening the plane irons etc. you will likely have invested more time and money than a decent small band saw capable of 6" resaw and a bench top planer would cost these days.

Still I can't help thinking that the effort to produce paddles entirely by hand would somehow result in a more resounding THWACK when the work is used for its intended purpose, as if all of your energies were transfered to and stored stored in the wood.

Thanks a bunch. I do believe a band saw and planer will be in my near future purchase plans. Sounds like best choice for me.

[Lee Koepke]

Welcome.

As Peter mentioned, resawing by hand is possible. A well tuned saw would make it better, but a decent handsaw would work. If you have done bookcases and such with handaws, you know the perils. A smoothing plane or jack plane would help with the manual flattening. I am venturing more into the "neanderthal" world, so I dont have much expertise there....

I just bought a DW 734 thickness planer and its a very nice addition to my shop. If you are doing paddles that vary in thickness ( say 3/4" + for the handles and 1/2" for the paddle, then hand tools would be MY first choice. Powered tools arent as versatile as hand versions.

[Brandon Shew]

Planer? Think about it. This guy wants to tun 4/4 boards into 2/4 boards. This isn't pine here, but rosewood and cocobolo the OP is talking about ($$). If you use a planer, you're going to turn 1/2 of his boardfeet into sawdust.

Based on the size of (and price of) the boards he wants to cut, he'd be better off buying a bandsaw. That way he could get cut his 4/4 in half and have 2 usable pieces instead of flushing 1/2 of it down the toilet.

[Jay Johnstone]

Ok, thanks Lee. Gosh, I need to learn about these different types of planes. I think a band saw will be my next addition but I don't want to get too dependent on power tools. As you probably know, there's a certain amount of pride one gets from doing things the old fashioned way.

I haven't considered making paddles with handles that are a different thickness than the blade part, mostly because I am clueless as to how I would do it. I have seen table tennis paddles that were made from thin layers of different woods. Those are interesting and my guess is those layers are glued together. Oh well, perhaps I'll tinker around with that in the future.

[michael osadchuk]

Thanks a bunch Jeremy. I'm kind of embarassed to mention this but I will. I was asked by a friend who lives in the UK to make her a paddle (the kind used to spank people with *blush*). Since it was a special thing, I used 1/2" red oak which, in my mind, would hold up relatively well. (3/4" would have been too heavy for the purpose). I cut it out with my new bosch jig saw then used a rasp to shape the handle. After that I started sanding with 60 grit sandpaper and worked my way up to 400 grit. I then used sanding sealer followed by several coats of semi-gloss poly, sanding lightly between coats.

It was a real gem when I finally sent it to her and I enjoyed making it so much I decided to make more to perhaps sell. I have since made several different shapes and lengths of paddles, all 1/2" but I want to begin using material such as honduras rosewood, cocobolo, maple etc, but all I can find where I live, besides pine and aspen is 1/2" oak. I'd love a table saw but don't have the space for one.

And no - I have no use for a paddle myself - honest!

Jay....... well, Jeremy Zorns' question certainly elicited more than we need to know information ...... perhaps given its intended purpose maple, red oak and cherry can be given provisional classification as exotic woods....

.....assuming the project serves the consenting adult community , my suggestions:

.... if you intended to go with hand tools (apart from a jig saw) a "scrub" plane, fashioned from a relatively cheap new or second hand No. 4 or No. 5 sized bench plane would fairly rapidly reduce the thickness from 4/4 or 13/16" to close to 2/4 and a nicer/more expensive No. 4 smoother plane would provide the finish..... I agree with Peter Quinn's recommendation on handtools as likely marketing advantage ..... btw, I suspect that better informed and good humoured people that inhabit the Neanderthal forum would have even more useful hand tool advice

.... if you intend to continue to use a jig saw for the cutting out the paddle, you may want to forgo the bandsaw for resawing (which needs a better bandsaw, a good setup and a steeper learning curve, IMHO) and pick up an used portable (but not handheld) planer...even the original consumer portable planer - the Ryobi AP10 with capacity to deal with ten inch wide boards - would be sufficient for this project; I suspect that a used, smaller benchtop portable planer could be picked for around $150 tops, and if you wanted limit costs and not immediately tackle resawing on a bandsaw, this might be the way to go...

....alternatively, if you envisioned larger production runs a bandsaw would be quicker/less tedious to cut out the shape of the paddle and could also be used for resaw efforts to get two usable slabs out of 5/4 material if not 4/4 material.

....and I thought butt horse leather was the traditional material for this usage

good luck


michael