dimensioning wood by hand?

[Billy Trinh]

I have some 1 1/4 x 6 Jarrah that need to be made 3/4 in the near future. Having a small workshop with limited equipment (no band saw, jointer, planer), what's the best way to achieve this? handsaw? handplane all the way through? I have a ryoba japanese saw and some old untuned handplane that I haven't had a chance to play around with. Or is it not worth the effort and i should start looking for the big power tools?

Thanks,
Billy

[Steve Thomas]

I'm not sure how much you've worked Jarrah before but re-sawing is never the best idea.
the thinner bit will cup, or twist for sure... heaps. and become unusable as a full width board, ok for narrower stock, but it's a pain in the butt

Good Luck.

[Adam Cherubini]

Billy,

What concerns me isn't the width of your stock or the amount of material that needs to be removed, but the species. I'm not acquainted with Jarrah, but my understanding is that it is hard and dense. If this were mahogany, pine, tulip poplar, or walnut, I would encourage you to simply do it by hand. I would saw or plane depending on the tools I had (wouldn't recommend a japanese saw for this) and the specific species.

Just getting ready to write a blog about this subject, but here's a preview. It seems to me that 95% of the woodworkers we hear discussing planes have and use ww machines to rough size stock. Consequently, these guys rarely have planes set up to remove stock quickly. So their view is a little different from mine. Having recent;y taugth a hand tools only class, I can say these fine cutting "jack" planes really don't do what is needed in cases like this one. You need to remove 1/2" (if my math is correct). That's alot of wood to plane away. If you wanted to saw it, you'd have to leave at least 1/8" for miscuts. So you have a lot of sawing to do to remove 3/8" of stock. Can be a tough call, depending on the material. My thinking is with Jarrah you want to remove that 1/2" with a surface grinder!

Adam

[Sam Takeuchi]

If you don't feel like hogging away that much by hand, and if you have a drill press, you can get this thing called Safe-T-Planer. I think it's more popular with luthiers than other type of woodworkers, I have it and it's a handy little thing. It's a rotary disc with three small cutters, you attach it to a drill press and that's about it. You can hog away up to about 1/4" in one pass, but probably 1/8" or slightly less is more realistic for something as hard as jarrah. If your drill press doesn't wubble, you can dimension it pretty accurately. I normally take the majority of waste until about 1/64" away from th desired thickness and simply plane and/or scrape the rest to clean it up. Good stuff.

Just thought I'd tell you.

[David Gendron]

Hi Billy, 6" is a lot of wood to rip by hand, that said, it is totaly possible! How long are the pieces? With hand plane it is also possible as long as you have a plane that you can set up the iron(blade) with a good Cambered edge(curved edge side to side) caled a "scrub" plane, that permit to take a thick shaving going across the board. Removing 1/2" wouldn't be to big of a deal. you could also find some one with a ticknes planer to do the work for you, if you put your location, maybe some one here on the forum could help you!
Good luck

[Billy Trinh]

Wow thanks for the heads up. I've never worked with Jarrah before. Just got a few lengths from a retired WW so I was planning to make something later. It is hard and heavy. I guess handsaw is out of the question. Maybe with a router with a planing jig? I have a small 3/4HP drill press, would it be enough for the Safe-T planer?

Maybe i just use the wood to make cutting boards with its current thickness.

[Sam Takeuchi]

That'll be plenty enough. I use it on even smaller bench top drill press. The key is to keep cutters sharp. It's easy to sharpen, grinding wheel comes with it, plus thorough instruction.

You can get Safe-T-Planer from here (http://www.lmii.com/CartTwo/thirdproducts.asp?NameProdHeader=Wagner+Safe-T-Planer). It might appear expensive at first, but this is a real time and energy saver. Before you use it on your stock, play around with scraps to get the hang of it. And make a little curtain out of a garbage bag and place it behind drill press, otherwise it'll spew chips all over the floor. Garbage bag curtain makes it easy to sweep up afterward.

[Richard Magbanua]

I'd say take it to a fellow WW or lumber mill and have them resaw it for you. Shouldn't cost too much. Just leave the finishing for yourself and your planes. That way you have some thin stock left over to use for something else.

[Larry Marshall]

Possibly it's not relevant to your circumstance but why do you need 3/4" stock? I see a lot of people forcing everything into a mold created by a habit of working with 4/4 stock that has been industrially convered to 4S boards.

This does yield 3/4" stock but there is nothing magical about that dimension. If you take 4/4 stock face both faces, including elimination of small amounts of wind from the boards, you end up with stock that's closer to 7/8" stock. As Adam suggests, if Jarrah isn't ironwood, a well-cambered jack plane can make quick work of 6" wide boards.

There's nothing wrong with using power tools but if you'd rather not use them, or if you lack space or money for them, prepping wood by hand is not arduous unless you're working really hard wood. I've recently completed a hard maple cabinet with hand-prepped wood. I also did this smaller job where I discuss the prepping process a bit. It was done in oak:

http://www.woodnbits.com/blog/2010/01/making-shop-bents-by-hand-part-one/

http://www.woodnbits.com/blog/2010/01/making-shop-bents-by-hand-part-two/

Cheers --- Larry

[Randy Klein]

Dimensioning stock by hand requires more consideration of wood species than when using power tools. Which means, Jarrah is not one I would want to work down 1/2".

[Larry Marshall]

Dimensioning stock by hand requires more consideration of wood species than when using power tools. Which means, Jarrah is not one I would want to work down 1/2".

I would concur on both counts. I did a bit of investigation and found that Jarrah has a density well in excess of hard maple. Possibly dynamite might be a better dimensioning tool (grin).

Cheers --- Larry

[Billy Trinh]

Possibly it's not relevant to your circumstance but why do you need 3/4" stock? I see a lot of people forcing everything into a mold created by a habit of working with 4/4 stock that has been industrially convered to 4S boards.


I'm thinking of making some speakers with the wood as it looks pretty good (and i have it available). The speaker plan call for 3/4 thick. Also weight is a factor. It's too heavy for the current thickness.

Last resort would be ask someone/lumber mill for help as suggested but I'd like to learn how to fish if possible so to speak.

I'm going to try with a router jig first as I have a router. If that doesn't work, i'll get the drill press planer accessory, then a real planer (either from someone or the store :) ).

Will save the hand tool opportunity for some easier wood.
Thanks all!

[James Scheffler]

I'm thinking of making some speakers with the wood as it looks pretty good (and i have it available). The speaker plan call for 3/4 thick. Also weight is a factor. It's too heavy for the current thickness.



If it's too heavy that's one thing, but with speakers a bit of extra wall thickness is a good thing. It makes the cabinets resonate less. You just have to remember that the internal volume of the speaker is critical. You account for that by making the outside dimensions a little bigger. If you're using 1" stock instead of 3/4", then you add 1/2" to the length, width, and depth.

Jim