Surfacing boards?

[Matt Walton]

A friend of ours had bought some ceder for redoing his fence, but he found a few planks that he thought were too good to use for the fence, so he gave them to me to use.
The only problem is that they are very rough, and all I have is a thickness planer. Now they are pretty darn straight, so I don't have to worry about just making it nice and smooth and still warped, but I am worried about any damage that might be done to the planer by running a rough board along the smooth flat surface. Also, since I don't have a jointer, I'm not sure how I would get one of the edges flat, since cutting it on a tablesaw seems like begging to go to the emergency room, as there is not a flat side to go against the fence.

Any ideas?

[Joe Spear]

Cedar is soft. A rough cedar board is not going to do any damage to your planer. I run hard maple, oak, and other rough boards through my planer with no ill effects.

[Matt Walton]

Okay, thanks. What about smoothing the edge?

[Brendan Plavis]

For the edge, you should try and get access to a jointer... or a gas mask and a sander.....

[Frank Warta]

If you have a router table, with a split fence, edge jointing should be pretty straight forward. It will only be as "true" as the fence length of the router table but still passable if the boards aren't too bad to start out with. The other option that comes up often is picking up a #7 on eBay and with a little TLC you shouldn't have too much trouble truing the edges. Getting things square may take a little work but honestly you should be able to safely make the edge perpendicular, so long as they're straight, on the table saw. Hope that helps.

[Paul Ryan]

You can make a jig for stright line ripping on a table saw for about $10 and 30 minutes of your time,

[Matt Walton]

OK, thanks for the advice! At this point in time, I have a less than adequate hand tool selection (and sharpening supplies), so I will go with either the tablesaw jig or the router table.

[glenn bradley]

+1 on router table as edge jointer. A planer sled is well worth the few hours it takes to make one for face jointing with your planer.

[Russell Sansom]

I have clamped many 1" (nominal) boards face to face ( like an on-edge butcher block ) and run them through a planer as a unit. The mechanism of the clamps has to be thinner than the boards are wide so there is zero danger of their hitting planer blades. A few light passes flattens one side, then the second side is simple enough.
This always seemed safe and sane to me, but you'll have to judge for yourself.

[Matt Walton]

It seems like that would be safe, as long as the boards were thick enough. I might go either way, but as there is five of them, I might end up clamping them in the planer. That is, if I can find a clamp that would work. Of course, I've been thinking about using it to make a small box, so really, I would most likely end up using one or two at the most. So would you suface them all at the same time, or do it as needed?
Also, on a barely related note, I need to figure out a place and way to store wood, so suggestions would be appreciated about that, too.

[Joe Spear]

The boards you show don't have that bad an edge on them. Plane the surfaces. Clean off some of the loose fibers on the edges with sandpaper, and you could run one edge along a table saw fence to rip and true up one side. Then run the other edge through the blade, again taking all proper precautions. You should end up with nice clean boards.

[Paul Hingco]

To surface joint you could either do it by hand with a jointer plane or make a planer sled and make light passes.

And for the edge, if you have a router table, you could use shims on the outfeed portion of the fence to replicate the function of the jointer or you could use a tablesaw. Fasten an already straight piece of wood to the piece and have the straight part ride across the table saw.

[Mitchell Andrus]

Hand plane the edge.... y'know, with a little elbow grease. Takes less time than your morning shower.
.

[john bateman]

If the edges are truly not flat enough to rip on the tablesaw, rip a piece of plywood or mdf to about 6" wide by approx the length of your boards.

Use a few dabs of hot melt glue to hold the boards to the mdf. (A makeshift clamp that holds the cedar to the mdf would be better) Let the mdf run against the fence and rip a straight edge on your board. The glue will come off when you plane them.

[John Gustafsson]

There is also a technique that I have seen using a tablesaw as a jointer. Set up a sacrificial fence so the blade can ride against it, then add additional thickness behind the blade so it is flush with the outside surface of the blade. At best you are limited to a cut the thickness of the blade but you get a longer guide from the fence than you would generally get from a split router fence. The setup is probably a bit much for one or two pieces.

[Tony Shea]

Of course, I've been thinking about using it to make a small box


Not really sure why this is an of course that your making a box, many uses other than a box for cedar.

And as far as getting a straight line on the edge I would use an edge jointing table saw sled. Not sure if that's really the name of the jig but is what I call mine. Takes maybe a half hour to an hour to complete and a couple cheap Harbor Freight toggle clamps. It's basically a sled that the board is clamped to and the edge of the sled is what registers against the fence to give you a straight line rip. Unclamp the board and rip the other side with the straight edge against your fence. I've used this jig hundreds of times with rough sawn stock to get me a straight edge. Works beautifully. Do a search on google for some ideas and plans if you don't completely understand what I mean.

A face jointing sled for your planer is another great jig to have on hand for wide rough sawn stock that wont fit the jointer, or in your case don't have a jointer. I got by many years without one with a few easy jigs and help from the Google search. SMC was also a big help.

[Britt Lifsey]

If you have one of those long "clamp and cut" guides that is long enough, I saw a neat trick of clamping it lengthwise with one edge of it hanging over the side of the board. You can then let the edge of the clamp and cut run along the rip fence to get a straight edge on the board. Hope that makes sense...I tried to find the pic I saw but no luck :(

[fRED mCnEILL]

Depending on the use of the board I just nail a straight piece of plywood to the board with the plywood overhanging the board so it acts as a guide that runs along the fence. Just as an aside, a pin nailer works great for this as you can't see the nail holes and they pull out easily.

Fred.

[Matt Walton]

Not really sure why this is an of course that your making a box, many uses other than a box for cedar.
Now that you mention it, me neither! :D

Anyways, this time, I think I will just do it on the tablesaw, as after looking at the boards, I am tending to concur that in this instance, the boards are straight enough. Although, I might try it different ways, to see which I like best, and just increase my skill in general.