Planing wider surfaces that can fit through my planer...how to?

[Brian Sommers]

I'm planning on building a new workbench. my old one got turned into my planer stand.

I want to make it 18" deep and 48" wide. I have a very small shop and its filling up!

I'm planning on making the top from 2x4's. Cutting the rounded edge off and ending with 1.5x3
then doing a glue up to 12" wide, eight of them. then planing that down smooth and flat. I was then going to make another glue up of 4 of them for the remaining 6" and plane those and then do a final gluing between the two. then taking a hand plane down that glue joint and sand for a final finish. Would this work? Is this the best way to go about this?

My planer can only handle 12" wide material.

[Bill Space]

Sorry, I had a nice chuckle when I read the thread title...:)

All I could think of was to either use a hand plane or buy a larger planer!

No help I know...I often think the same thing since I only have a 15" planer and lust for a 20"...

Bill

[Gene Davis]

On YouTube Paul Sellars makes a nice bench all from pine construction lumber, and using hand tools for all the work.

It is a dozen or so sequenced videos. Find the ones where he preps the lumber BEFORE glue-up, and then after, when he planes to flatten. You will be inspired.

[stevo wis]

I just did the same thing for a 39" wide table that I am making. My planer is 15" so I did three different glue ups at 14", let them dry, then hit it with a scraper for the glue, planed it to almost final thickness. I then did one final glue up of the three sub assemblies and very carefully clamped cauls across the three pieces for the final glue up. Again, I scraped off glue, and flattened with my number 6 plane. It was fun and didnt take too much work. I did have access to a wide belt sander, so I ran the entire table through it, but really didnt need to. If nothing else, the hand plane can hit the high spots before planing.
Stevo

[Brian Sommers]

Good to know, I'm on the right track then.

[Robert Engel]

I'm in the middle of a workbench build right now.

A word of advice:

Winding sticks,
a long straight edge (I use a 6 foot level)
a nicely tuned, sharp jointer plane.

I assume you already know the drill as far as planing cross grain etc.

[Martin Wasner]

We just made a 52" wide table, same problem our sander is only 42". We did exactly what you're thinking and joined the two halves after running them through the widebelt. Two people helps with alignment, start on one end and work your way down and you should get them close enough that just hitting the joint with a da sander gets it flat enough.