Flattening Maple Boards

[Bob Winkler]

In my bookcase project, I need to flatten some hard maple boards that are too wide for my 6" jointer. I know that the planer won't work because the feed rollers press the board down, which means the boards don't end up any flatter.

My question is will my Performax drum sander act like my planer, or can I use it to slowly take high spots off the boards (like my jointer) until they are reasonably flat? I would use some coarse abrasive (maybe 60 grit or less).

If that doesn't work, does this mean I have to buy a nice handplane, and flatten the maple by hand?

Bob

[Greg Tatum]

Hey Bob....I use a melamine coated shelf as a sled to run wide boards thru my 12.5" delta....I just shim under the high spots and and use a stop block at the end to keep the board from being driven off the sled.....a small 1/2" thick scrap plywood with dowels at the ends that fit into the shelf-pin holes.....also use wedges with dowels when they coinside with high spots, otherwise I use dbl sided tape and light passes.

Regards,
Greg

[John Hemenway]

Taunton's web site has a video of Greg's concept. Of course it's a little juiced up with complexity like all 'Fine' ideas are. :) In fact I see a link to the discussion here on SMC at the bottom of this page. It looks like a do-able way to flatten wide boards if you don't happen to own an aircraft carrier sized jointer.

[lou sansone]

I am not sure how much pressure the performax rollers put on the board, but I use my timesavers ( widebelt sander) all the time to do exactly that. In fact that was one of the main reasons I bought the wide belt was for processing figured wood. Many folks are moving to spiral insert jointers and planers, but the cost for wide head, high quality, machines is really pretty high for me. So my advise is to use the performax sander, or you can use the shimmed sled technique. You might still find that even though the sled technique works, because of the exceptional figure in that maple you will find it tearing out.


regards
lou

[Jeff Sudmeier]

I have had good luck with just running the boards through the planner and taking very light passes, In really cupped boards I take passes of 1/64th of an inch. It takes awhile, but it turns out good.

[Jim Becker]

Jeff's planer method of very light cuts works very well for taking out cup, etc., but it will not fix a twist. For that, you need to use a carrier sled so you can shim the board to keep it from rocking. (Or knock the corners down with a hand plane, etc.) The same situation would be true for the drum sander...albeit it will take a lot longer!

[James Carmichael]

The Taunton sled has a lot of bells & whistles, not sure I'd want to invest that much time & effort unless I knew I was going to use it a lot. If it's just one board or project, a good, flat piece of MDF as a sled with shims should do the trick.