Resaw vs Thickness planing

[john schnyderite]

I'm having my first go at milling my own boards, so I bought a bit thicker than needed. I've got my boards jointed and much of my them are around 2" at their thickest point and around 1.5" at the smallest. My final size should be somewhere around 1.25" -- that sounds like a ton of work to put my planer through. I saw wondering if it is advised to resaw down to the thickness I need and then either plane or assemble and sand (my resaw blade leaves a pretty clean cut). I haven't heard or seen people doing this so I wasn't sure if there is any reasoning behind it.

[Al Launier]

If I understand you correctly I would suggest that after you have jointed one face flat & one edge square you then resaw to 1 3/8" - 1 1/2" followed by planing BOTH sides to your finished thickness of 1 1/4". You can do this by dimensionally, i.e. faster speed, plane until you have ~ 1/32" left on each side, then finish plane each side to the final 1 `1/4" dimension.

[Matt Day]

No way I’d bother setting up my bandsaw to resaw that amount off. But for me I have one saw, and it might require changing the blade and guides and such. If you have a few saws and one dedicated to resaw, up to you I guess. The planer is made to hog off material and that’s what it does best, so I’d use it.

However, as Al says, do your best to remove material from both sides. If you take a little off one side jointing and remove a whole bunch from the other planing, your board could react since it’s moisture content is not balanced. So as soon as the planer surfaces the entire side, flip it and remove some from the previously jointed side so you equalize cutting.

[Brian Holcombe]

I’d probably just plane it, if you resaw then all the material comes from one side. The stress of this material being removed will cause the remainder of the board to move in some way. So then you end up re-jointing and then planing. Enough material needs to be left to do that, so you can only resaw a small amount off.

[Matthew Hills]

Did you buy this wood already dry?

I'd also recommend planing in several session, in case your wood moves.
it is a lot of chips, but this seems to work better for me.

Matt

[Derek Cohen]

My post below is partly a question and partly a response to the OP's question. The question is "whether there is a danger in bandsawing away waste?".

I have always understood that the whole point of re-sawing is to create a number of thinner slices from a thick board. There will be some movement expected, and so we need to plan for this. Planning to thickness for a single board seems a real waste of time and effort if it is possible to get there faster using a bandsaw.

As Matt asks, is the wood dry? How stable is it - can you tell from the grain what it might do?

I was preparing Jarrah boards some weeks back and took a couple of photos. Here is a board being re-sawn. I have enough to create one book-matched panel, and so it is sawn down the centre. This takes place after one side and one edge is jointed flat. I then allow for some small amount of re-jointing later. But the important point is that the waste is bandsawed away. Surely this is common practice?

https://i.postimg.cc/9fBmPy7y/1a.jpg

I watch the kerf as the board comes off the bandsaw. Does it remain an even thickness, or does it widen to reflect movement in the timber as stresses are unleashed? Here, the kerf is very stable ...

https://i.postimg.cc/0Q9R0wZR/2ax.jpg

I treat all my freshly re-sawn boards the same way - as they come off the bandsaw, I sticker them, and add clamps. Then I leave them alone for a time ...

The photo below: the clamped boards have just been re-sawn. The others are in use (the resawn board is amongst these) ...

https://i.postimg.cc/Bv8DBzm7/Ia.jpg

At the time of resawing I always leave a couple of mm for re-surfacing later.

The amount of time that the boards remain in clamps is determined by the amount if movement. If there is much, they can stay that way for a month. Otherwise they get used about a week later. Sometimes they get used immediately, if the joinery will ensure that they will remain flat (such as when dovetailing).

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Dave Cav]

Derek, what blade are you using?

[john schnyderite]

Yes, boards were kiln dried over a year ago.

If I plane equally from both sides, is the movement not an issue with the amount of material I'm looking to take off? If not, I'll go that avenue


Did you buy this wood already dry?

I'd also recommend planing in several session, in case your wood moves.
it is a lot of chips, but this seems to work better for me.

Matt

[Nick Lazz]

Derek resawing is used for any number of reasons. I use it all the time to reduce the amount my planer has to work. To be honest, I don’t know why you wouldn’t do it that way. Your waste may very well be material you could use for another project, plus your saving your planer knives.
I’ve never rested my resawn wood like you describe. I’m probably doing it wrong, but if I had to wait for a board for a month I’d never finish a project. If you start with dry wood 7-15% moisture content, I think you’re pretty safe. If it has a stressed grain, you’ll have to joint it straight or figure out some other solution.
I’ve also never heard of planing both sides of the wood equally. I joint a face and an edge, resaw to 1/8” oversize and plane to thickness. I might flip and plane the jointed face but only if I want to clean up that side from tear out or something. Since the planer is indexing off of your jointed face, you shouldn’t flip it unless you know the wood is coplaner.

[Bill Dufour]

Storage climate since dry? Local climate? What Hemisphere? If it is summer now they are as dry as they will get if they are at local equilibrium. If you are in winter they may be damper then they should be. Of course if you have freezing weather RH may be reversed. If it is winter in your part of the world. Do you have climate seasons there?
Bil lD

[Derek Cohen]

Bill, I have a dry climate in summer, which can last 8 months of the year. On the other hand, the local wood is highly interlocked, and I have had some "interesting" results!

In my understanding cutting into a board will release a differential surface - one side drier than the other - and this can create issues. Would others view the inner tensions a factor of this?

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Bill Dindner]

Derek,

why do you clamp freshly resawn boards, while at the same time stacking them.

As as far as I understanding the purpose of stickering and stacking is to let air all over the boards and let them settle and equalize the tension, then finish dimension them when they no longer move, clamping them would defeat that purpose?

[Mike Cutler]

John

Yes, you resaw to thickness, or rather maybe an 1/8" thicker to accommodate any further required milling, and account for sanding to final surface. This is what a bandsaw is for, dimensioning wood,and is is actually the way it should be done, if starting with roughcut lumber. I personally would never plane off 1/2"-3/4" of wood over the surface of a board. That's a lot of material ending up in a dust collector that could be used later.
My flow path is generally as follows.
-Joint a face.
-Joint an edge, or rip with a tracksaw.
- Resaw close to dimension.
- Plane if necessary, or I go right to the drum sander. I can hold to within 15-20 thou' resawing, so often I just skip the planer step, and the sander does the rest of the work.

Milling your own boards is the way to go. It gives you much more control over the final appearance.

[Brian Holcombe]

The way I read the above was that the boards have a taper to them 2” to 1.5” maybe from biased jointing. However if he meant that the boards are of different thicknesses then I would resaw thr thickest ones.

Given the material coming off I would plane until uniform thickness, let them alone for a while then joint again and plane to final thickness flipping the board with each pass after it becomes true on both sides.

[Derek Cohen]

Derek,

why do you clamp freshly resawn boards, while at the same time stacking them.

As as far as I understanding the purpose of stickering and stacking is to let air all over the boards and let them settle and equalize the tension, then finish dimension them when they no longer move, clamping them would defeat that purpose?

Hi Bill

The reason for stickering is to ventilate, as you note, but stickering, per se, does not equalise the tension. Tension relaxes over time. My view is that this is aided by the moisture levels on opposing sides equalising. I have found that clamping the boards reduces, and may prevent, unwanted movement - boards do not always return to a flat state when they relax. Boards need different amounts of time to relax (thickness, moisture content, time of year, species, grain). It is important to plan ahead when building with solid wood. In part, this is forced on me as a weekend warrior.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Jim Becker]

There are a lot of variables here and no one "correct" answer. I tend to re-saw valuable material when the resultant off-cut would at least give me something that I can final thickness to 1/4" or more. I always have uses for thinner stock, especially 1/2" material for making small boxes on the CNC that I offer for sale or 1/4" for trim material on the high-end tack (equestrian) storage systems I build on commission. If it's ho-hum material, then I might just turn the waste into chips. I also re-saw when the material is really unique and can provide elements for a project that make it stand-out. I did that recently with some English Brown Oak on a hall table project, taking materail from the stock I was making the legs out of to use as some really interesting live-edge aprons. Those off-cuts were thin, so they got laminated to "not as pretty oak" to get the required thickness for my joinery with the unique material as the "show" surface. The bottom line: do what's best for the particular material you are using.

[Mike Cutler]

Hi Bill

The reason for stickering is to ventilate, as you note, but stickering, per se, does not equalise the tension. Tension relaxes over time. My view is that this is aided by the moisture levels on opposing sides equalising. I have found that clamping the boards reduces, and may prevent, unwanted movement - boards do not always return to a flat state when they relax. Boards need different amounts of time to relax (thickness, moisture content, time of year, species, grain). It is important to plan ahead when building with solid wood. In part, this is forced on me as a weekend warrior.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Derek
I have found the same to be true.
I too clamp boards together after the milling process, or clamp them to the work bench edge, to keep them flat while they're equalizing stress. I also keep them that way during a project. So far, this has worked out for me exceedingly well.
I may start a project,and then something else becomes a priority, and it may be a few days, or weeks, until I can get back to it. There the material is, ready to go.

[John Petsche]

Thanks for sharing your process and photos. Great tips!

[john schnyderite]

How long might one expect before equalizing after resawing? days? weeks? longer?


Derek
I have found the same to be true.
I too clamp boards together after the milling process, or clamp them to the work bench edge, to keep them flat while they're equalizing stress. I also keep them that way during a project. So far, this has worked out for me exceedingly well.
I may start a project,and then something else becomes a priority, and it may be a few days, or weeks, until I can get back to it. There the material is, ready to go.

[Mike Cutler]

John

I cannot speak to any given time period, and I am certainly no expert, but for me, all of the material stays this way until it is in it's final form. We're generally talking a week or so.
To be clear though,I have an unheated, non climate controlled garage shop. This winter has been a very trying winter. Below freezing, followed by 50 degrees and raining.I have to leave all of my machines covered and protected, or the rust will bloom overnight. I use a lot of wax!!and LPS 3.
It is all too common for me to store the wood in the house, or the basement, and carry it back and forth to the garage as I work. I have a lot of wood stored outside in a shelter logic building also.
Right now I have a couple hundred board feet of cherry in the basement. The combination of wood stove and dehumidifier keep it at ambient environment conditions. This material will become kitchen cabinets the spring. I've also stored wood in a spare bedroom upstairs for months at a time.
Some of the cherry has already been milled into rough 2"x2" square stock that will be the vertical section partitions for my project. Those have ben clamped for quite a while now and are very stable.
This system has worked for me so far.
I will add though that I am extremely picky about lumber. It is very rare that I ever buy flat sawn lumber. I try to ensure that everything is rift sawn, to quarter sawn.