Planing long boards

[Karl Wicklund]

I'm planing down some aspen. Boards are up to 12' long, and will be used full length for paneling my walls. This'll be something of a challenge, as my bench is 8' long. Some boards I'm just smoothing, some I've got to hog off about 1/4".

I'll give it a whack trying to do it in sections. If that doesn't work, I'll try to rig up some sort of bench extension. What kind of experiences have you guys had with this? Thanks!

[Pedro Reyes]

Karl,

Never had to plane anything that long, but if I had to do it today, I think I would try wedging the board on the top (since I could not use vises or stops) and having the board hang ~2ft on either end, I would support the ends with some (rollers if I had them) made up support.

What problems are you facing? Not being able to hold it?

/p

[Karl Wicklund]

Ah, I should have added this: I'm planing down the face, not just edge-joining. The lumber varies in thickness, but none is more than 3/4" inch. I'm aiming to get them to a consistent thickness, near 1/2"
I'm sure the wood will deflect as I plane if it overhangs the end of the bench that much.

[James Scheffler]

Maybe you could attach the thickest 12' board to the bench as sort of an auxiliary bench, attach strips to the end and side to be used as planing stops, and then place each board on it to work on. The trick is to get that first board flat without additional support.

Jim

[Alan Schwabacher]

Planing 1/4" off the face of even a small fraction of the surface of the walls of a room sounds too much like work. You might want to consider how flat floors were made using hand hewn stock. One face was planed flat, but rather than thicknessing each board, it was hewn to the right thickness only where it rested on the joist below. In a similar way, what if you installed thin battens on the walls, and hewed your paneling to fit. This way you can concentrate your effort on the show face.

[Karl Wicklund]

That's not a bad idea at all. I was just reading about hand hewn floors the other day, and wish I'd made such a sensible connection. I may not even need to add battens.

[Robert Rozaieski]

You can plane it in sections like you are doing. Though it isn't ideal, it will work. I've done boards up to 9' long on my 7' bench. I just plane the 6½-7 feet that is on the bench, slide the whole thing down and finish up the rest. It takes a little longer this way than if you had a longer bench, but it works. I find that flat across the width is more important than flat along the length, so having some length of the board hand off the bench and planing the length in sections can work. When the short length of the bench becomes a problem is when you need to plane long stuff the entire length without stopping, like you do when sticking a molding. Even then, you can work around it, but it's not ideal.

[Mark Roderick]

The lunchbox planers are pretty darn cheap.

[David Gendron]

Make your self a "planing Beem", I meen by that, making a long box(in two or three sections) out of flat stuff like ply wood so it act as a torsion box dat you could set on your bench or saw horses, with a stop at one end, a little like japanese use to plane long board!

[harry strasil]

2 long 2 b 6's that have the grain opposite of quarter sawn and made true, preferrably some old growth pine with a couple of large dowels thru them in 4 places that you can put spacers between the runners and with an end stop, clamped down to your bench top, makes a very effective planing table for long stock that need to be face planed by hand.

[David Keller NC]

I'm planing down some aspen. Boards are up to 12' long, and will be used full length for paneling my walls. This'll be something of a challenge, as my bench is 8' long. Some boards I'm just smoothing, some I've got to hog off about 1/4".

I'll give it a whack trying to do it in sections. If that doesn't work, I'll try to rig up some sort of bench extension. What kind of experiences have you guys had with this? Thanks!

Karl, though I'm a dedicated Neander, if I had to remove 1/4" of thickness off of enough 12' long boards to panel a whole room, I'd be plugging in an appliance (a lunch box planer). If I didn't already have one, I'd be loading up the boards in the back of the pickup truck and taking them to my local lumber supplier, who will joint and plane boards less than 20" wide for $0.50 per foot, which works out to $6.00 per board.

You can always plane a few thousandths off of the face after that if you'd like a hand-planed surface.

[Rick Erickson]

I'd be plugging in an appliance (a lunch box planer)...

Gotta go with David on this one. As much fun as I have with hand planing, nothing about what you are trying to do sounds fun :eek:. If this is out of necessity I wish you luck. I would love to see pictures of the final product.

[Bob Jones]

Go for a more rustic look and leave them different thicknesses

[Bob Easton]

What Robert Rozaieski said! Flatness along the length isn't nearly as important as across the width. No need for fixtures or bench extensions. Plane what fits on the bench and then slide the material to get the unplaned stuff on the bench.

It would be a real good thing to have a simple aid that keeps the overhanging end at bench height. For example, when I'm working 16-20 foot boat lumber on my 12 foot bench (http://www.bob-easton.com/blog/?p=223), I rest the free end on a simple cleat attached to the wall that is the same height as the bench.

I've used this technique for boat planking that needed to be a consistent +- 1/32" in thickness and it worked well.