Ouch, planing 13 2x4 glue up

[Chris S Anderson]

So I decided to make a table for my power planer, and decided to do it using hand tools only. I glued up 13 30" 2x4's and clamped them overnight. I'm using an old plane as a scrub plane to get down to some semblance of flatness, but I don't know how far to go before I jump to my nicer planes.

The 2x4's have 1/8" ridges now, and I've been planing them for about 45 minutes to get that far. Is it ok to use my LN #7 at this point to start working on the flatness, or do I need to take all the ridges out?

If it were just 2 pieces that I was using the jointer on, I would start using it now, but it's 13 pieces across with 12 ridges to eliminate.

[Larry Marshall]

So I decided to make a table for my power planer, and decided to do it using hand tools only. I glued up 13 30" 2x4's

It's hard to know how to advise as it's hard for me to interpret what you've done and why it's taking so long. Here's what I see:

1) Doing the arithmetic it seems you've glued up a slab that's about 20x30 in pine.
2) You said you used "an old plane as a scrub plane."
3) So far you've worked 45 minutes and still have 1/8" dips between each 2x4.

If those are proper assumptions, I have questions, not answer :-) What do you mean "used it as a scrub plane?" Have you modified the plane with a very curved but still razor sharp edge? If so, is it set up to take 1/16" or so with each pass? Are you working it across the panel? You see, if I went after your panel with my scrub plane those dips would have been gone VERY quickly. So, maybe I don't understand.

Depending on how your #7 is set up, it might be fine to use it but questions abound concerning how, if at all, you've been checking for wind, lopping off high points, etc. Again, with pine none of this should take very long but does require some of the basic approaches talked about by Chris Schwarz and others.

I wonder, given your slow progress, whether you have your plane set up to 'take fine shavings' rather than to get the job done. We place too much emphasis on how pretty what comes off looks and not enough on what it takes to get the job done I'm afraid (grin).

Cheers --- Larry

[Chris S Anderson]

I think the scrub plane is taking off plenty, there's just a lot of surface area to deal with. I still have ridges inbetween the 2x4's, and they are getting very small. I could continue with the scrub plane until the spaces are gone and I am working with just a flat surface, but, I was wondering, if I could start using my number 7 now, or if it would be better to level the boards after the gaps and ridges are gone.

[Robert Rozaieski]

Switch to your #7 but take a relatively thick shaving (like the thickness of two sheets of copy paper) and plane across the grain. This will address the flatness across the panel issue and get rid of the rest of the gaps in short order as long as they aren't the result of gluing up stock that didn't have flat faces (you did flatten the faces of the 2x4s before laminating them together, right?). Also use winding sticks to make sure you aren't planing the panel into wind. Once it's flat across it's width and not in wind, lighten the cut on your #7 and plane diagonal and along the grain to flatten the length of the panel (I hope you oriented the edge grain in the same direction on all those 2x4s or you're going to have an interesting time finishing the flattening process along the length without a lot of tearout and trouble).

[David Gendron]

I would continue with your"scrub" plane and also what help is to scribe a line all around the piece to know what tickness you want as a finish slab! So when you get real close to the line, you can then swich to the #7 to make the last few passes and be sure to check your progress with a straight edge!
Just my $0.02

[Bob Easton]

Like Larry, I wonder how your "scrub" plane is set up. Knocking the rounded edges off that slab of 2x4s is taking off just a bit more than 1/8 inch and should be done in no more thn 3 passes with a good scrub plane. Maybe 20 minutes.

Run that blade out and take a deeper pass. Work the scrub until the "ridges" are gone.

[Rick Erickson]

I agree with David. This is a solid approach. Mark your thickness with a guage and scub until you are just over that thickness. Then take the jointer and bring it down until you hit your line. If it is taking this long with the scrub plane you may not have it setup just right. Of coarse at this point I wouldn't change your setup as it sounds like you are close to final thickness.

[Robert Rozaieski]

Just a note about gauging the thickness. This is only going to work if one already has one true face. If you have yet to establish one true face, you need to flatten and true that face before you can gauge the final thickness as you need the true reference face to reference your gauge off of.

[David Gendron]

Of cours what Bob just said, I forgot to mantion...I was assuming that the bottom part was all nicely jointed and good care was taken befor and during glue up... That said it should of been reflaten after glue up! Thank Bob for the corection.

[Larry Marshall]

I think the scrub plane is taking off plenty, there's just a lot of surface area to deal with.

Chris, I'm sure it looks like a lot of surface area to you but it amounts to the equivalent of a couple 5-foot long, 8-inch wide boards. Someone familiar with hand plane use could not only flatten that amount of surface, they could square an edge as well and do it in far less than the 45 minutes you've been working already. That's why I posed the questions I did.

You simply shouldn't have to work so hard at the process and finding out why you've had to work for 45 minutes and are still scrubbing could move you a lot further along should be the first goal here - no? Just trying to be helpful here.

Cheers --- Larry

[Josh Bowman]

I think you need to continue to scrub. I have a #40 Stanley scrub and it's blade is extreamly round and takes a very, very thick shaving. The end result is lot of valleys. To help reduce the pattern of valleys you plane at a different orentation. Then take the resulting sharp ridges down with a standard type plane. I've tried to use a #5 Stanley to "rough" down boards.....it's very hard to produce much of a thick shaving for me and wears me out! If you think about what the squarish blade of a #5 is doing, it's easy to see why it would be slow and hard. It's taking a 2" wide shaving that's as thick as you can push....maybe 1/64". The #40 on the other hand takes a convex shaving off the wood and can easily take 1/16". Therefore the #40 scrub moves through the wood like butter, because its blade is gouge like. Then when you use a standard plane it even works easier because it's taking off only the high points. Then when it starts taking a full shaving you should only have a few hard strokes to suffer through. Now before everyone runs out on Ebay and makes the #40 sell for $200, I've seen Swartz and others simply take a standard foreplane blade and round it....not as much as a real scrub, but quite a bit.
Hope this helps
Josh