Milling smaller pieces from large boards

[Mark Augustyn]

I got a hold of some leftover quartersawn white oak cheap and I'm about to mill it. This is the first time milling smaller - mostly 2 to 4" wide pieces - out of large irregular boards 3 to almost 9" wide and 8' long. The rough boards are flat on both faces, rough but fairly straight on one edge. On the other edge they are all over causing the boards to vary in width by maybe half inch to an inch or so.

What I'm used to doing is first mill both faces flat. After that though, is there a 'most efficient' way to get, for example 2" x 18" boards out of bigger pieces? What I was planning to do was use a board a little less than 4" at the ends and maybe 4-1/2" over 90% of the length, joint the flatter edge, and rip to 2". The remaining piece I would just rip again and discard the ends less than 2" wide.

Is there and reason to leave any extra over the 2" as sort of a rough cut? For what? I dunno - sanding? In case I want to run it through the planer again? I thought I read somewhere to do rough milling first but it seems like it would be a waste of effort to me now.

[Walter Plummer]

My two cent opinion is to first rip wide for your widest pieces 4 1/4" , then as many narrow pieces 2 1/4" as you can get. Then cross cut rough lengths, then joint and plane. Joint your best edge and then rip or gang plane to your finished width. If you want 18" finished lengths you can get 5-19" rough cuts from each 8' length of stock. That is my usual approach but everyone works different. Good luck.

[Bill McDermott]

Walter offers an efficient process, math included. Nice.

More generally, when taking smaller parts our of larger boards, I like to keep the boards as big as possible for as long as possible. Of course, they are all meant to be used. But I try to keep length and width in case I need a larger piece later. The way I do that is to use white chalk to roughly (oversized by an inch or so) layout the pieces I want, where the grain and figure works well. Then cross cut the rough board to free those pieces from the larger leftover. Then I cut the pieces out (rough). Sometimes with a handsaw, other times with a bandsaw, other times with a jig saw. Then I joint, rip and plane and trim them to dimension.

It sounds like you might be using the whole large board, for lots of similar smaller pieces. In that case, I would joint, rip and plane the large board - just to be done with the large machines and to get all the parts to the same dimension
in one go.

The extra two inches of length might be an issue if there is checking at the end of the board or if you need it so you can cut planer snipe away from your actual piece.

[Charles Lent]

I avoid planning any wood that is shorter than the distance between the input and output of my planer. Shorter pieces can get picked up by the planer knives, causing significant damage to both the piece and the planer, if it is not held down all the way through the planer by at least one feed roller. For these short pieces, it's best to make many passes through a drum sander to get the desired thickness. See, there is a way to make short pieces thinner. If a lot needs to be removed, resawing the piece to almost the desired thickness and then running it through a drum sander will speed up the process.

I own a DeWalt 735, which produces almost no visible snipe in the first and last 6" of the board being planned, but there are ways to avoid snipe on planers that do have this problem. My old Delta lunchbox planer was notorious for snipe on the first and last 6-8" of every board, so to solve this and not waste a foot of every board, I learned to feed a narrow piece of scrap in first and then start my good piece after the first 6-8" of the scrap piece had come out of the planer. The snipe would be on the scrap and not on my good piece. I did the same with another piece of scrap, feeding it in before the trailing end of my good piece entered the planer, so the trailing end of my good piece did not get sniped, as it happened on the last 6" of the second scrap piece.

As Bill said above, you should always joint and rip your large piece to the desired thickness plus a little to allow for final sanding and joint at least one edge, before cutting it into smaller pieces. This usually avoids the need to plane and joint short pieces, most of the time. Then cut the large piece into the needed smaller pieces working from the jointed edge, but leave a little extra (1/8-1/4") width and length on each piece, so you can trim and sand them to final size later. Solid wood pieces frequently move when cut and change shape a little when separated from a large board. The slightly over size cutting will let you then trim each piece to it's exact size after this movement occurs. The resulting final accuracy of your pieces is sometimes surprising. Also, never plan on using the first or last few inches of a full board as it comes from the lumber source. There is frequently small drying cracks in the ends and your pieces will likely fall apart after cutting, if cut from this area.

Charley

[Jim Becker]

No harm in skimming both faces to "see what you got" and mildly breaking things down to mill to thickness safely. But as Charley mentions, you do not want to be trying to run short-shorts through the jointer and planer. Honestly, I always break down lumber this way and rarely do I ever mill something "long" to final thickness. That makes for a more manageable and safe process. I also leverage my slider to "change the position of the edge" on material quite often to get the best grain flow for a project. Folks can do that using a sled with a North American style table saw and then use their fence to get the other edge parallel. Think things through and you will be fine!

[Mark Augustyn]

Thanks all! Sounds like excellent advice.