Planing my timber

[Jmill]

Hello, after successfully milling my first lot of timber, I was wondering what is the best way of getting these buggers flat and usable once dry? Obviously a planer thicknesser sounds like the way but without access to one can i use an electric power planer without losing all my thickness? Or is it hand plane all the way!!???!

[MATTMOSS]

Is there not any wood working shops nearby? an industrial thicknesser would be best imo.

Im sure there has been another thread on this?

[agg221]

Whichever way you do it, you will lose the same thickness by the time they are flat.

 

You need to think about what you want to do with it, which determines how flat you need it. If you are making outdoor furniture, flat is not necessary, fine cabinetwork you will need very flat and each board the same, etc.

 

Assuming you want pretty flat, the first thing to do is in the milling (too late now I know) - quartersawing improves things a lot as the boards are more stable against cupping. It does mean that it's worth selecting the boards which are closest to quartered for use as wider boards. Further out from the centre will be more cupped, so better ripped down narrower to save more thickness.

 

Once milled, good stacking whilst drying, with plenty of weight, will keep them flat.

 

Planing - the easiest way without a thicknesser is to find a flat surface, such as a benchtop or an old door etc, then clamp the board to it, as hard as you will be fixing it down when finished. Play around with it a bit before clamping it hard, to get the bit furthest from the surface as close as possible by tipping another bit upwards, so that it is as 'level' as possible. Then take a pencil, shim it up by taping on bits of wood until, when lying on the flat surface, the lead is level with the wood to be planed at the point of the widest gap, ie it just reaches your board. Holding the pencil against the table (taped to its shims) draw round the whole board. This tells you how much to plane down to to get a level surface.

 

Flip the board over, then use a panel saw to make a series of cuts across the board, down to the line on each side. Don't overdo them as there will then be more to take out, but cut gently, at an angle to start with, then bringing the saw gently down to just touch the line both sides when resting in the cut. Put a cut across as close together as you feel comfortable aligning to. More cuts makes it easier to stay accurate but takes more time - I've found about 6" apart to work fairly well.

 

You can now plane the surface, just down to the cut lines, then just take them out and the surface will be flat.

 

Flip the board back over, clamping back down the same as before and it should lie flat - if not fix any problems. Once it's flat on one side, and clamped down, shim the pencil higher, either to just reach the lowest point on the board or to the thickness you want. Repeat the marking, cutting and planing as above.

 

The above deals with warped or cupped boards, or wavy surfaces so long as they reach the edge. It doesn't deal with slight dips in the middle. If you need a series of boards, the same thickness, so long as you keep the second pencil taped to the same shim, all boards will come out the same, or at least close enough for final finishing when fixed up.

 

I used to do the above before I had the thicknesser, and have used it for boards which are too wide, and for strangely shaped stuff like boat knees.

 

Alec

[MATTMOSS]

Ah I was trying to find the other thread but I think Alec's answered your question

[Jmill]

Thanks a lot for your response mate. I've got to be honest..... I don't really understand it but I'm sure that's me not you. Just one question.... What is a shim or shimming? Sorry but I've no idea! Haha cheers again,

[muttley9050]

A shim is a random thickness of material used to either fill a gap or prop something up. In this instance a shim is a piece of wood taped to your pencil. This will raise the pencil off the bench when held horizontally, allowing you to mark a level line. Eg. On the second face, If 18mm boards are needed then put a shim roughly 14mm under pencil this should make it about 18mm to the lead. As Alec says, if this setup is used everytime, all boards will be marked out at the same thickness.

[ucoulddoit]

I meant to reply to this thread ages ago but decided to wait until I'd taken the following pictures. I was also trying to find someone local with a wide planer thicknesser, but eventually resorted to using my router in the set up shown in the pictures. With hindsight, for a one off table top for my own use it was probably the best way forward as it took less time to flatten and thickness two boards than the traveling time alone to have them machined.

 

The two book matched sawn boards were 4' long, 20inches wide and 2 inches thick. Due to drying distortion the finished thickness had to be 1 1/2 inches but the 40mm diameter router cutter managed to remove up to 1/2 inch of material in each pass. If I'd ripped each board into two planks there would have been less 'waste' and the planks would have fitted my 10 inch planer thicknesser. But I was reluctant to split two such good boards.

 

Another advantage of using the router was that there was virtually no tear out in the burred areas and only light sanding with a random orbit sander was necessary. No hand planing was necessry.

 

Final picture is the table top in the process of being finished with boiled linseed oil diluted 50/50 with genuing turpentine. The boards came from a dead elm and were starting to decay/spalt in some areas which I felt added to their character. In the first three coats, the timber soaked up about a pint of oil and looks as though it will take a lot more. I find the oil hardens and strengthens any spalted areas of wood that are a bit 'soft'.

 

Andrew

[woodyguy]

Thanks for sharing. That's lovely work and something I've been planning to do myself with my dewalt so good to see it done well.

[harvey b davison]

Really impressed with the home made jig. My mind tends to go blank when thinking about making jigs.

[Jamespepperpot]

This board was too big for my thicknesser planer so I used a handheld electric planer on a very shallow cut and a spirit level.

 

 

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