squaring 4 sides of rough lumber.

[John A. Callaway]

I bought some really nice 8/4 cherry for the next project : a pattern cabinet for my wife's clothes making patterns. ( think blue print cabinet ) I am going to build the base for this one out of this cherry, and the 4 legs are going to rise up level with the top surface of the cabinet, with the chest sitting in the middle of them on a frame .

So, after rough cutting everything out the 12 ft. board a few weeks ago, its time to start with the planes. Sometimes I encounter this problem and sometimes I don't. So here goes. I took the old no. 3 and opened the mouth up wide and scrubbed off the rough wood from the surface of each side, getting each side relatively flat. After wards I started with the no. 8 , and went to flattening up each side and getting it square. I do have winding sticks, and I put them to use. But still, I wind up getting one or two corners out of flat, so that the board isnt the exact same thickness at all four corners. The last time I did this ( all hand tool ) operation I had two boards as practice and one came out dead right, and the other was just a bit off. I bought a micrometer a while back and I should probably put the thing away and forget I bought it. But I did one of the legs today and each corner was a 1/16" or less above the lowest corner. I can correct it, but it seems as though maybe I am missing something... I will have to monitor myself to see if I am planing the farther side more or with more pressure, or the closest side more or with more pressure....

I have yet to take the marking gauge and determine a final thickness, and I want to wait until I get all four legs ready and mark everything off the thinnest of the four .

Has anybody noticed that when they work they end up with a low side to the face of a board consistently? Or maybe some other nuance that they learned to correct that was causing this sort of problem?

Or is it just a flat out lack of experience?

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j87/trainman0978/IMAG1083.jpg

[David Weaver]

Don't plane the area that gets low until last, wherever that area is. You can start from the middle of the board and work out, check with a ruler while you're working to make sure the corner isn't falling away as you go along, etc.

You should be able to get that first face about dead flat, and then from there, one edge square and everything else is reference. Just make sure you work the first flat dead flat if you want the piece to be accurate.

The simplistic comment to make if you're planing more off of a corner is, "don't plane more off the corner than the rest of the face". If I'm in your shoes, I plane the middle clean first and then work the edges down to the middle. Otherwise to get rid of the low spot on the corner after you've made it, you'll need to plane the rest of the board until you've worked down to that spot.

Check often as you're going along here so you can find where it is that you create the problem - whether it's the corner far from you or the corner close to you in relation to your body.

[David Weaver]

One other side comment, I don't know how wide the original board was, but it will be easier to get lateral flatness on a wider board (as in wait to rip the board to a narrower width until after you flatten the face. If it's around 10" or so wider (less than that a little maybe) and you can plane an X pattern on the board, and then straight through strokes once everything looks good, the winding sticks are usually true right away. The less adjusting, etc, you have to do after you've done the initial work, the better, and the faster the work will go.

On narrower boards, you don't have as much room to work in an X or work directly across the grain.

[john brenton]

If I ever find myself doing that, like I did with almost every piece of this horribly twisted 8/4 cedar I picked up on the cheap, I usually just go straight to cutting the pieces I want from it and dealing with it on a smaller scale.

edit: whoops, I didn't read that you had already done that. Davids advice is good, but you're dealing with such a tiny bit of offness that I wouldn't worry about it if you didn't have to. The unneveness of the floor it'll be sitting on is probably much, much worse!

[Chris Griggs]

Are you transferring your downward pressure to the heal of the plane as you end your stroke? It's very easy to taper a board by taking to much off the end of the board your stroke ends on. Making sure you transfer your downward force as the plane comes off the board helps this. Like David said check often and also check for twist before you start planing and if there is a lot of it hit the high area's first. After a while you sorta discover an order of operations that works for you.

For me I knock out any major twist first, than traverse the board in an x like David describe and end with taking long strokes with the grain. After all this if there's still a touch of twist I take just a couple of light diagonal stokes from one high corner to the other. Careful this is very easy to overdo and just add more twist - for these final passes check for twist and flatness every very few strokes

[Chris Griggs]

If I ever find myself doing that, like I did with almost every piece of this horribly twisted 8/4 cedar I picked up on the cheap, I usually just go straight to cutting the pieces I want from it and dealing with it on a smaller scale.

Best advice yet!

EDIT: Depite John's edit to his post and despite the fact you already did this, it is still excellent advice that I often need to remind myself of.

[Jim Koepke]

I bought a micrometer a while back and I should probably put the thing away and forget I bought it.

Recently I have discovered trying to work to small tolerances is frustrating and useless when working with a material that changes with the weather.

I do have a micrometer and a few calipers, but seldom use them for achieving finished results in wood.

Since then, I have been using story sticks or a folding rule. My work seems to be fitting together better by using a less exacting system of measurement.

I am interested in seeing what you do with the pattern cabinet. My wife has a lot of patterns and she would like a way to store them.

jtk

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

I'd love to see how this cabinet comes out too, keep us posted.

I often focus on the middle of boards, simply because I find I get flatter quicker that way - I actually probably end up going just a hair to concave, and then finessing things out with a few quick passes.

I'm also often kind of half-assed about stock prep - usually I only count on one side being pretty, and one side being square, although this depends on the project. Often I figure the inside needs to be square so that my joinery pulls tight and things look nice, but I don't worry about minor tear out or other surface imperfections - the outside, if nothing's referencing against it, just needs to look decent and be flat enough to not be super noticeable to the outside. I've built a lot of things where you might feel the ripples in a few places, and if you started measuring, you'd realize the board a case piece might be made of is thicker at one end than the other, or have a low corner. Obviously a higher level of precision is required for some pieces to fit properly, and not everything is made of a show side and a reference side (sometimes they're the same)

If the board in question is large enough, often times you can get away with quite a discrepancy before it's noticed by the eye.

It's probably incredibly poor craftsmanship on my part. I'm not suggesting super sloppy work, but sometimes "perfect is the enemy of good"

[Wilbur Pan]

But I did one of the legs today and each corner was a 1/16" or less above the lowest corner. I can correct it, but it seems as though maybe I am missing something...

Consistent thicknessing is one of the more challenging things in milling boards by hand. The good news is, usually you can get away with less than perfect results. In this case, if one of your legs winds up being slightly narrower than the others, odds are no one will notice it once the legs are in place. Since this is a cabinet, and I am assuming this will go up against a wall, you can take the two most closely matching legs and put them on the front, and put the less well matched legs in the back.

[Jim Neeley]

Once you've got a perfectly flat reference face, are you using a marking gauge to mark the thickness equidistant for the other side? When you flip the board over to plane side #2, it givesg you a "plane-to" mark all around the perimeter.

The same approach can be used once you have one side perpendicular to your reference face, using a marking or panel gauge all the way around to give you the plane-to line.

Just my $0.02.. YMMV.

Jim

P.S. I'm looking forward to following your build as well! :-)

[Charlie Buchanan]

Once you've got a perfectly flat reference face, are you using a marking gauge to mark the thickness equidistant for the other side? When you flip the board over to plane side #2, it givesg you a "plane-to" mark all around the perimeter.

The same approach can be used once you have one side perpendicular to your reference face, using a marking or panel gauge all the way around to give you the plane-to line.

Just my $0.02.. YMMV.

Jim

P.S. I'm looking forward to following your build as well! :-)

+1 on this. The key is getting a flat reference face-- then mark desired thickness from that face. If you use a sharp wheel-type gauge you can see when you get to within one plane stroke short of correct by watching the edge of the board as the mark is revealed.

[Terry Beadle]

A quick comment about using the micrometer. If you use the micrometer to check the thickness of the board about every 3 ~ 4 inches, that will let you know exactly what parts of the target board need the most plane-ing attention. I some times write in pencil the measurement on a practice piece as that gives me a direct reading of the material and a good idea of where to put the curved blade to the best effect.

I would only use this micrometer technique on really difficult woods. Most boards just need a very slight concavity in the middle and planed to target thickness on the ends as Mr. Charlesworth recommends. He says: "I'd rather have a slight concavity than a bump."

[John A. Callaway]

Thanks for the insights. I am thinking that it probably has more to do with even pressure on the plane from one end to the other. I wont have time to get out there for a day or two to work another leg and see what happens. Once these for legs are squared up I will determine the final thickness of all four legs, and after that I will cut mortises in them, then cut the tapers on the face and ends of each leg. I do have my jointer's iron honed with a slight camber , and I will try to see if positioning the middle of the iron of the high spots along the corners will help to direct the cut in only the necessary areas. The camber is super slight though, maybe .004" from flat middle to the outer edges.

The legs will look like columns out side the actual cabinet. They will be parallel to the sides and there will be a small gap between the inside edge of the legs, and the outer edge of the actual case.

I bought that book ' 500 Cabinets ' and it is super inspirational and chock full of some really creative pieces. I saw several variations on this kind of base , so I decided to run with the idea. Lets hope it works out.

[Mike Siemsen]

When dressing rough lumber I would start with a fore plane of about 14 to 15 inches in length, a wide open mouth and a sharp cambered iron. Your #3 is too small. Put your winding sticks on the board and find the low corners, mark an x on them so you remember where they are. Use your fore plane to remove material from the 2 high corners just at the ends until the ends of your board are in wind with each other. Now plane along the side of your board with your fore plane and connect the 2 far corners. You should now have the perimeter of your board established and in the same plane. Remove wood from the middle with your fore plane, by planing across the board or at a diagonal, do not plane any material away from the previously established perimeter. When your plane stops taking shavings your board should be all in one plane with a scalloped surface. Use your jointer plane (#8) to repeat the process, remove the scallops, and further straighten and flatten the board. Once the board is flat you can take your very sharp 3# with a tight mouth and smooth the surface. Typically it is not necessary to 4 square a board, As Josh says. 1 reference face and edge. In a case piece the reference face goes to the inside as that is what all of the parts fit up to, the outside is then planed off to look "right", there is no need to smooth plane the inside face. A good flat bench top is helpful in flattening boards as you can flip them over on this reference surface and check your progress. Get a soft wood plank from the lumberyard and try it for practice.

[Bob Glenn]

John, I think you're right on even pressure on the plane as passes over the wood. When planing to a line on an edge, I find I get down to the line faster at the far end of the board. I have to remind myself to put more pressure on the toe at the begining of the pass and more on the heel at the end.

[David Keller NC]

John - A question, and a comment on the "zen of planing"

Are you sure your bench is flat (in both width and length)? It doesn't need to be flat within 1 thousandths all the way down it's length, but you shouldn't be able to measure the "out of flatness" with a ruler - 1/16" is way too much. Any deviation will be mirrored in your workpiece, so if the bench isn't flat, you'll have a real struggle to get any board straight and rectilinear with a handplane

The "Zen" of planing - Mike Siemsen's post alludes to this, but the single biggest mistake handplaning beginners make is to assume that the tools will automatically flatten the work. There's a reason for the length of a jointer plane, but even then, you can't "mindlessly plane" - you have to think about where you're taking off shavings, and check where more wood needs to come off frequently throughout the planing process.

[John A. Callaway]

yes, my bench is dead flat. I am still starting to think it is me, and something I am doing ...most likely not maintaining even pressure through the entire stroke...

[Jim Matthews]

Did I glean correctly that these are legs?

If that is the case, you need concentrate on having two perpendicular faces to show toward the outside.
Internal dimensions can be managed by adjusting the crosspieces to fit the legs.

If it was me (and it isn't), I would get all four faces of each leg "clean" so that no milling marks are present.
I would then stand all four legs up so that I can orient the tightest growth rings pointing toward the interior or the work.

I think of them as four corners of a map, SW-NW and NE-SE.208219

Using a marking method of your choosing, mark all four legs so that you can keep the growth rings pointing "IN" and work on the exterior of these legs.

In pairs (SW+NW) (NE+SE) flatten the Western and Eastern faces. These are the reference surfaces.
Square the adjacent Northern or Southern "edge". These are the reference edges.

The idea is to have the exterior surfaces describe a perfect square.

The interior surfaces should be smooth, and relatively straight, but they need not be square to the reference faces to fit together.

[Federico Mena Quintero]

Shannon Rogers has a very nice video on avoiding the "low side" when flattening a face: http://www.renaissancewoodworker.com/rww-96-avoiding-the-planing-taper-planecraft-101/