Planer Sled Maiden Voyage

[Gene E Miller]

Greetings & Salutations,

I am in the process of building 2 solid cherry cedar
chests and had just gotten to the part where I need
to build the box units and the tops.

In my supply of Cherry that I purchased for this were
several nice boards that are 8 - 12 inches wide and
since I only have a 6" jointer I just hated the idea of
having to rip these boards down to 6" to joint and plane
and then have to glue them back up to make pieces that
are 12 1/2" wide.

After much searching and reading of the forums I found
that several Creekers' had built a sled found on the FWW
website and used it with much success.

So I contacted Keith Starosta and got the plans and
proceeded to build one and by golly gee whiz it works.

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I used 1/2 MDF which I had instead of plywood for the top
and bottom skins and then pretty much followed the plan.
Since I live more than 50 Miles from the nearest Borg I went
to Wal-Mart and found some bathroom bathtub stick on
anti skid strips that I used for the supports and wedges.

After an initial run I found that they were not gripping
extremely well and the board being planed slipped slightly
so I put in a couple of screws that I had on the front end
that can be adjusted up or down for the thickness of the
stock. I think I will replace those with some hex head
bolts with nuts and washers on both sides that can be
locked in place.

I will more than likely be going into Memphis tomorrow so
I may drop in and pick up some of the stick on rubber treads
that others have used with success.

However I did run the first piece of Cherry thru using the
sled and as it was 9" wide I must say it did a very nice
job. I do have to make some adjustments in my out feed
support as I got a little snipe on the tail end but it was
strictly due to the fact that the out feed support was
slightly too high.

One thing for anyone making one of these is that this
baby is HEAVY when loaded with a piece of wood so either
get some help moving it from out feed side to in feed side or
figure out some method that will not break your back..

I'm an ole man and I need help with mine.

Thanks for all of the threads and information about this
and also to Keith for sharing his experience and plans.

I managed to put this together in about 6 hours from start
to finish.

Gene Miller

[Lewis Cobb]

Hi Gene - Greetings from up here in Canada. Looks great - but I didn't understand what you were talking about with the 2 screws for the board thickness. Do you mean you added a couple of screws that, like the wedges, provide some support under the board to keep it from rocking around? Sorry if I missed something obvious - I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed at times

Lewis

[Gene E Miller]

Hi Gene - Greetings from up here in Canada. Looks great - but I didn't understand what you were talking about with the 2 screws for the board thickness. Do you mean you added a couple of screws that, like the wedges, provide some support under the board to keep it from rocking around? Sorry if I missed something obvious - I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed at times

Lewis

Hi Lewis,

I forgot to upload this picture that will maybe show the
screws a little better. I put them at the in feed end of the
sled so that if the board that I am trying to plane tries to
slip on the wedge supports it will not be able to slide.

DSCN14662008-04-18-154650_resize.JPG

I am going to replace them with bolts that can be adjusted
up or down and they will have washers and nuts on both
sides of the 1/2" MDF top skin to lock them in place.

Hope this explains it a little better.

Gene

[john bateman]

I don't understand the need for something so complex and bulky.
When I've needed to use my planer as a jointer, I just lay the board on a piece of mdf slightly larger than the board. I screw or hot melt glue a scrap at either end to keep the board from sliding. Then I stick a couple wedge shaped shims under the board wherever there's a gap, to keep it from rocking. Some masking tape holds the shims in place.

Two passes through the planer and it's flat.

[Lewis Cobb]

Hi Lewis,

I forgot to upload this picture that will maybe show the
screws a little better. I put them at the in feed end of the
sled so that if the board that I am trying to plane tries to
slip on the wedge supports it will not be able to slide.

DSCN14662008-04-18-154650_resize.JPG

I am going to replace them with bolts that can be adjusted
up or down and they will have washers and nuts on both
sides of the 1/2" MDF top skin to lock them in place.

Hope this explains it a little better.

Gene

Ah yes - clear as can be now - thanks !

Lewis

[Rob Diz]

I don't understand the need for something so complex and bulky.
When I've needed to use my planer as a jointer, I just lay the board on a piece of mdf slightly larger than the board. I screw or hot melt glue a scrap at either end to keep the board from sliding. Then I stick a couple wedge shaped shims under the board wherever there's a gap, to keep it from rocking. Some masking tape holds the shims in place.

Two passes through the planer and it's flat.

I think the reason for the jig are 1) ability to face joint long heavy boards without much snipe and 2) repeatability (with ease).

I recently face jointed some about 6 wide cherry boards - first to face joint them so I had a square face to resaw, and then to clean up the resawn face. I used some 1/2 inch MDF I picked up from the BORG in the damaged section. It did the job for me, but I had a bit more "set up" time for each pass through that I would have had with the jig.

I built a "more comlicated" tapering jig that seemed a bit safer to me and had a lot of options/adjustments. I have used that thing for at least 5 projects. The time I invested in the jig has paid off, so I can understand spending the time on this jig.

[glenn bradley]

One thing for anyone making one of these is that this baby is HEAVY when loaded with a piece of wood so either
get some help moving it from out feed side to in feed side or
figure out some method that will not break your back..

Glad it worked out and it is surprising how quickly these go together. I know I stalled for over a month before I finally made mine.

As to weight, I used 1/2" BB ply for the skins but it does still weigh just under 20 lbs.

[Gene E Miller]

Greetings & Salutations,

When I used the jig the first time and got some slippage
on the board that I was trying to flatten I added
the screws on the in feed side to keep the board
from being pulled forward faster than the jig but
I wasn't really happy with that setup so today
I went over to Memphis and stopped into the HD
looking for some rubber stick on stair tread mats.

I was not able to find any but after browsing around for
a little while a light bulb went off and so I thought I would
give this a try.

I got a can of the material that you dip tool handles into
to put a rubber grip on them. I brought it home and
spread a generous layer on the adjustable blocks and let
it dry and proceeded to make a trial run.

After setting up the piece of cherry and adjusting the jig
I used my hands to push the board along my assemble
table. With my hands only on the cherry board and pushing
forward and back the entire sled moved with ease with
no movement of the cherry board on the jig.

After this I put the entire jig and board thru the planer
and it worked like a charm.

If anyone is thinking of make a sled like this I highly
recommend using the rubber dip as an anti skid surface.

Hope this helps someone in the future.

Gene

[glenn bradley]

Hi Lewis,

I forgot to upload this picture that will maybe show the
screws a little better. I put them at the in feed end of the
sled so that if the board that I am trying to plane tries to
slip on the wedge supports it will not be able to slide.

DSCN14662008-04-18-154650_resize.JPG

I am going to replace them with bolts that can be adjusted
up or down and they will have washers and nuts on both
sides of the 1/2" MDF top skin to lock them in place.

Hope this explains it a little better.

Gene

You may want to try changing your "grip" stuff. I use regular stair tread and have never had a slip. Just my experience. The bolts for stops looks like they work fine too.

[Kevin Slankard]

Forgive my ignorance, I'm in the process of buying a planer or jointer myself and really don't understand the difference between these two tools. I'll ask about the above mentioned in a different post.

My question: Looking at the pictures, it appears the sled only elevated you "cherry board". Why couldn't you just run the board through the planer on its own? I understand having the sled to face plane several boards at one time, but I don't exactly see the benefit in what was shown above. Again, I'm asking because I've never used a planer or jointer. I would think using a few stands on the infeed and outfeed would do. Please clarify for me.

Thanks

Kevin

[Josiah Bartlett]

Kevin, the sled forces the planer to reference the flat plane of the sled instead of the wavy back of the board when it does the thicknessing.

A jointer references the face of the board being jointed to make it flat.
A planer references the opposite side of the board being planed, which may not be flat, but it makes the board a uniform thickness.

To take it to an extreme case, imagine a potato chip. Suppose you wanted one side of the chip to be flat. You would run it through a jointer.

Suppose you wanted it to be all the same thickness. You would use a planer.

Now, suppose you didn't have a jointer and you wanted it flat. You could fool the planer into making it flat by attaching a flat surface to the back of the potato chip and running it through the planer.

That's what the sled does.