Change my mind

[Michael J Evans]

Dimensioning lumber by hand (accurately) is one of the hardest operations in the hand tool shop.

change my mind....

This is probably more my level of experience and impatience but no matter how much I plane a board, it's seems like when it comes to dimensioning, it's more like a art than a science. In theory it's very very easy. Remove twist, remove high spots, don't touch low spots, etc. But in a reality, it's like "remove twist this corner, oops made a low spot, plane rest to low spot, now theres a dip on that side, etc etc. Tail wagging the dog.

I've only really been able to do it successfully on very small boards.

Not looking for advice. Just a discussion. Always reading about how hard dovetails are to cut or X joint. I think the really skilled are the people who can dimension boards well by hand.

My problem is I lose my patience and start going at it per se, while not constantly checking.

Anyways what are your thoughts? Dimensioning vs joinery...

[Weogo Reed]

Hi Michael,

On occasion I've run in to the same thing with both manual and hand flattening.
If a piece of wood has a different moisture content at the surface from below the surface,
once that lower level of wood is exposed to air, the piece might move, getting more or less twisted, cupped, whatever.
) Quarter- or radial-sawn wood is more stable than plain-sawn.
) Reaction wood, from a tree grown on a steep slope, can move significantly with humidity changes.
) Some species are known for their movement.
Plain-sawn wood from a reaction tree of a high-movement species can be used, if
it's of thin section and the ends are well anchored in a slot, etc.

What(usually) works for me:
Cut board a little long and wide of finished dimensions.
A few days before flattening, set the board out leaning against a wall or
stored in some way that air can get to both sides. Don't stack and sticker.
Partially plane down the high spots, on both the top and bottom, and
then let the board sit a day or two, leaning against a wall.
The board may not change at all, or it may find a new balance.
Do final planing.
NOTE: Get a face roughly flat before edge joining.

Scrounge or buy some cheap construction lumber that is badly warped, twisted and cupped.
Practice on this and my guess is you will be on the fast track to successful face planing.

Thanks and good health, Weogo

[Michael J Evans]

Hi Michael,

Scrounge or buy some cheap construction lumber that is badly warped, twisted and cupped.
Practice on this and my guess is you will be on the fast track to successful face planing.

Thanks and good health, Weogo

Hi weogo
I'm working on turning 2x6 construction material into a table top.
Doing large boards is definitely a challenge. Especially edge jointing.

[Julie Moriarty]

Before purchasing a decent JP, I jointed all edges by hand. For thicknessing, I would knock down any twisty boards by hand and finish on the thickness planer. I've taken down small boards by hand but at my age, that's permanently in the past.

[Charles Guest]

Part of the art in it is knowing which boards not to bother with - the ones that should be cut up for the inevitable smaller parts most any furniture project will need. They have to come from somewhere. This and having an actual lumber inventory to work out of. Don't buy a 100 bd. ft. of lumber for a project that needs 95 bd. ft. You'll have a knife at your throat before you even pick up the first woodworking tool. These two very things may be part of the cause of the anxiety you're feeling. Give yourself a break. You can't polish a turd into a diamond. It's wood. It grows on trees. I'm not proposing wastefulness but using the wood wisely and for its best position in the project.

I will give you one tip: don't stay on "Highspot A" until you think it's completely gone. You need to plane high spots A, B, C, D, E, and so on alternatively until it starts to become apparent how much material, overall, you're going to have to remove to arrive at a flat face. If you go from point to point planing hell out of each point you're making a mistake. You will never end up with a flat face. One more tip -- look at the amount the board is cupped, draw a rectangle on each end representing the width and thickness you need out of the board. You may not be able to get the thickness you need once you've planed out the convexity on one side, and the concavity on the other. This is a board than needs to be ripped to yield narrower work pieces.

[Jim Koepke]

One has to start by being a bit picky about the lumber they are going to work.

Also size has something to do with it. It is difficult at best to make a panel out of two 1"X12"X8' boards to be perfectly flat. My solution was to put them inside a frame to hold them flat. Crude but it worked.

Other than that most furniture or cabinets don't need a flat side longer than 4'.

For my quick utility builds lumber yard fir works pretty well:

453120

It is not perfect. It is good enough for its use.

For better work, better wood makes the difference. Frame and panel construction can do a lot to make the hand work easier.

Here is a hand planing workout:

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?272588

Some help was needed to run it through the bandsaw.

jtk

[Warren Mickley]

Stock preparation takes a lot of skill. Some have claimed that the master left the apprentices to do stock preparation. However if you have four matching pieces of figured mahogany that you have selected for drawer fronts, there is no way you want a 15 year old fooling with that stuff.

For efficient work you need to make a mental map of the board using straightedge and winding sticks. It is very helpful to have an idea how much material needs to be removed and how many strokes it will take to do that so you are not constantly checking. You don't just blindly start planing or following some ritual; you only remove stuff from the high spots. A good workman will bring a board to flat with a minimum of loss of thickness, and have it nice enough from the trying plane so that a once over with a smoothing plane will clean up scuffs and dirt etc.

[Curt Putnam]

A couple of years ago I decided to sell my jointer, miter saw, and table saw. Two of those were good decisions. Getting a board flat enough to stay put while going through the planer is not too hard. I prefer a hand planed edge joint anyway. Initial straight line ripping is done with my track saw and the other side will be done with the table saw. Crosscutting and then shooting the ends is a pleasant task for me. As you have surmised, I have become averse to excess physical effort in my dotage.

[Christopher Charles]

One trick is to rethink the sequence that boards are processed and what part(s) actually need to be flat and perfectly dimensioned. For instance, I've done several table tops were I get one side reasonably flat, then edge joint and then glue the panel. I then get the 'reasonably' flat side truly flat and make the bottom side 'usably' flat (i.e., so it sits flat on the aprons-can be a whole lot of ugly in the middle). The top can then be the reference face if a bread board is needed, etc. This is in contrast to the machine 4s or 6s to precise dimensions before assembling parts.

Hope that helps.

C

[Ben Ellenberger]

I forget where I saw it, but I’ve followed this process for the last several things I’ve worked on:

1. Start with the board cupped-side down (so it is high in the middle).
2. On each end of the board use traversing strokes to get it fairly flat across the width for about the last inch of the board.
3. Use winding sticks, then get each end in-plane with the other end. Just the last inch of each end.
4. Run a pencil line across each end about a quarter-inch in. You don’t want to hit this pencil line until you are almost done flattening.
5. Work each long edge of the face until you have a pretty straight strip on the outer inch or so of the face. Plane down high spots but stop before you hit your pencil lines on each end.
6. Mark the long edges with a pencil. Now you’ve got a box drawn around the edges of your face, and that box is pretty much in plane and un-twisted.
7. Start traversing to take off the high spots in the middle, but don’t hit your pencil lines. Keep traversing until your strokes begin and end just inside your lines.
8. Finish off with a few diagonal passes that completely traverse.
9. Switch to your jointer/try plane/fine-set jack to make passes along the length. Again, try to leave your lines on each end until you are almost done, then take them off with your last few passes.
10. Do a final check for twist/straightness and make any little corrections you need to.

I found that approach helped keep me from going too far, then having to go back and fix twist. By getting the outside of the face pretty close to flat and out of twist, then working everything in the middle down to that you have a good visual reference to work too. Since the initial flattening is only over narrow strips, it doesn’t take that long to get your lines drawn all around the face.

[William Fretwell]

Sticker the boards for a while then sort out the best stock for the demanding areas. Rough plane the wood and re-sticker. Some tensions will have been relieved. After a few days do the final planing. The thinner the stock the more useful this is.
Cutting the boards to rough length makes the task easier with less wood wasted. Taking a long board and aiming for flat square there won’t be much wood left.
Most likely there is only one side needs to be close to perfect, the other less so, use the latitude the piece gives you to match the wood.

[Michael J Evans]

Stock preparation takes a lot of skill. Some have claimed that the master left the apprentices to do stock preparation. However if you have four matching pieces of figured mahogany that you have selected for drawer fronts, there is no way you want a 15 year old fooling with that stuff.

For efficient work you need to make a mental map of the board using straightedge and winding sticks. It is very helpful to have an idea how much material needs to be removed and how many strokes it will take to do that so you are not constantly checking. You don't just blindly start planing or following some ritual; you only remove stuff from the high spots. A good workman will bring a board to flat with a minimum of loss of thickness, and have it nice enough from the trying plane so that a once over with a smoothing plane will clean up scuffs and dirt etc.

Thanks Warren
I once had a thread in a similar vain and you had made a comment along the lines of "only take down the high spots"
Honestly that has stuck with me. Before that I had watched all these videos and never really understood the process. The video guys are like plane across, diagnol then straight and it's good to go.

In regards to the apprentices. From a business stand point I would tend to agree with you. You generally don't have the most novice guy working with the most expensive stuff. I would assume wood was just as expensive back then (or much more so) then it is now. And from the little I've read wood workers weren't a real rich lot.

[Michael J Evans]

Everyone thank you for the reply lots of great information.

My more intended point though was to ask what takes more skill accurate dimensioning or cutting joinery.

For myself I see dimensioning as taking much longer to become proficient whereas I was able to cut a workable dovetails after my first few attempt (I still suck though).

I believe I took something like 1/2-3/4" off my bench top when I built it, trying to get it perfect.

[Prashun Patel]

Nothing to it but to do it. It takes a lot of practice to recognize and correct a board.

The biggest help will be to practice on boards that plane easily. Softer, straight grained (along the edges) make it easier to take single, targeted, and deeper passes. Check your progress often. It gets easier but there is no magic: You know the rules , now you just have to practice.

Sometimes it may help to work across the grain instead of with it.

[Andrew Seemann]

Some people love thicknessing lumber by hand. I hate it. To me it is just miserable drudgery and a complete waste of my limited shop time, and my even more limited time for using hand tools. If you find you don't like it, there is no disgrace in buying a lunchbox planer and either rough face jointing or just buying a 6" or 8" jointer.

Truth be told, I don't even like thicknessing lumber by machine either. If I have more than 100 bf I need, I just have the yard do it. For me, initial stock preparation (jointing and thicknessing) just makes it take longer to get to the part of woodworking I like. Since I do this as a hobby (well, sort of at least) I don't want to spend any more time than I have to doing things I don't like.

That said, I have done enough of thicknessing by hand that I can do it when I need to, as well as things like face jointing for boards wider than my jointer, and I used to edge joint by hand before I got good jointer.

Thicknessing is a handy skill, but maybe not the first one I would recommend tackling when learning to use hand tools. I'd say get smoothing down first, along with edge jointing. Then if you want to, try tackling thicknessing. By then you will have gotten good enough at sharpening, feeling the feedback of the plane, reading the grain, watching for tearout, and built up enough muscle memory to make thicknessing less frustrating.

[Jim Koepke]

My more intended point though was to ask what takes more skill accurate dimensioning or cutting joinery.

My own experience was being able to cut dovetails or mortise and tenons before being able to accurately dimension a board. So for me cutting joinery capable of holding together was easier than getting two pieces flat while the same size and thickness.

jtk

[Oskar Sedell]

What Warren said.

You also need to know your planes well. By practice you will know your jack and try plane settings so that you have an idea of how many strokes it takes to take so and so much of light under the straight edge away. And knowing how deep defects your Jack plane might leave, so that you're not arriving at final thickness, and then have to remove the tearout.

And by thinking - observing the board and seeing where you need to save wood to arrive at a certain thickness. This means sometimes taking both high corners down equally, and sometimes leaving one, and taking the other completely.

I often flip the board a couple of times. If it is very out of flat it rocks around a lot on the bench. Then I take the worst high spots down so that I can flip it and lay it down pretty stable and work on the other side. then flip back.

[Charles Guest]

It's instructive to remember that the first woodworking processes to be mechanized were the simpler, more laborious ones -- ripping, jointing, and thickness planing. Machines for these processes came well before the automatic end-tenoners, dovetailing machines, etc. I think at least one Shaker community had a belt-driven jointer/planer. None had end tenoners or dovetailing machines -- the easier the hand process, the easier to mechanize.

Maybe an analogy helps: building the foundation of a house is crucial, it's hard physical work even today and it needs to be done accurately. That said, nobody would confuse it with building stairs and intricate handrailing. People aren't going to remark on the wonders of a foundation that supports a house, remains, level, etc. It's EXPECTED. They will remark on how well the interiors are appointed and fitted out. If you build furniture it is EXPECTED that you have the sense and the basic skills to select and accurately prepare raw stock. What you do with it after that is the part people will notice. By all means be proud of acquiring the skill to get raw stock out for a project. But don't pat yourself on the back too long - to 99.9% of the world it's still a pile of lumber until you do something with it. Slightly prettier than it was before, but still basically a pile of lumber. You've built the foundation. Wonderful. Now where the hell is the house?

Analogies are rarely if ever perfect. I'm not denigrating foundation specialists.

With regard to staffing and the order of work in an 18th century shop I ask this somewhat rhetorical question of the OP or anybody else who is having trouble four-squaring stock: I'm retired, closer to 80 than I am 70. That said, I'm fully capable of getting out stock by hand. Here's what I propose: I'll come by your shop and get out every single stick you need to build a reproduction John Goddard secretary, like the one that sold for $12MM and mentioned in the LA Times article below. Every stick. Accurately. You buy the lumber. I'll help pick it out if you need help with that. Then every day I'm going to come to your shop, drink tea, and watch you build it. You see, I've done the skilled part. The rest an apprentice can do. Make sense? Deal? When you're done, and if I'm still alive when you've finished, we'll sell it for a $100K and you get 25% of the profit and me 75% -- you know, because I did the difficult part.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-03-25-mn-240-story.html

[Stephen Rosenthal]

Michael,

Your query seems to have gone off the rails into a discussion of techniques, so my response to your specific question is dimensioning - by a mile. You can cut the most perfect and precise dovetails, mortises and tenons all day long, but at the end of that day it won’t matter a lick if your boards aren’t flat and square. They won’t fit together properly nor will they look good.

[Michael J Evans]

Michael,

Your query seems to have gone off the rails into a discussion of techniques, so my response to your specific question is dimensioning - by a mile. You can cut the most perfect and precise dovetails, mortises and tenons all day long, but at the end of that day it won’t matter a lick if your boards aren’t flat and square. They won’t fit together properly nor will they look good.

Thanks for reading Stephen

[Stephen Rosenthal]

Thanks for reading Stephen

As a retired Librarian, that’s one of my specialties.

[Stephen Rosenthal]

One more thing I might add, on a trip to the lumber yard, a moisture meter is your best friend.

[Michael J Evans]

It's instructive to remember that the first woodworking processes to be mechanized were the simpler, more laborious ones -- ripping, jointing, and thickness planing. Machines for these processes came well before the automatic end-tenoners, dovetailing machines, etc. I think at least one Shaker community had a belt-driven jointer/planer. None had end tenoners or dovetailing machines -- the easier the hand process, the easier to mechanize.

Maybe an analogy helps: building the foundation of a house is crucial, it's hard physical work even today and it needs to be done accurately. That said, nobody would confuse it with building stairs and intricate handrailing. People aren't going to remark on the wonders of a foundation that supports a house, remains, level, etc. It's EXPECTED. They will remark on how well the interiors are appointed and fitted out. If you build furniture it is EXPECTED that you have the sense and the basic skills to select and accurately prepare raw stock. What you do with it after that is the part people will notice. By all means be proud of acquiring the skill to get raw stock out for a project. But don't pat yourself on the back too long - to 99.9% of the world it's still a pile of lumber until you do something with it. Slightly prettier than it was before, but still basically a pile of lumber. You've built the foundation. Wonderful. Now where the hell is the house?

Analogies are rarely if ever perfect. I'm not denigrating foundation specialists.

With regard to staffing and the order of work in an 18th century shop I ask this somewhat rhetorical question of the OP or anybody else who is having trouble four-squaring stock: I'm retired, closer to 80 than I am 70. That said, I'm fully capable of getting out stock by hand. Here's what I propose: I'll come by your shop and get out every single stick you need to build a reproduction John Goddard secretary, like the one that sold for $12MM and mentioned in the LA Times article below. Every stick. Accurately. You buy the lumber. I'll help pick it out if you need help with that. Then every day I'm going to come to your shop, drink tea, and watch you build it. You see, I've done the skilled part. The rest an apprentice can do. Make sense? Deal? When you're done, and if I'm still alive when you've finished, we'll sell it for a $100K and you get 25% of the profit and me 75% -- you know, because I did the difficult part.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-03-25-mn-240-story.html

Charles I read the article.
In some sense it almost seems like the cabinet makers were the general contractor, and then they employed sub contractors (carvers,turners,etc) to make all the bits and pieces.

[Michael J Evans]

I'm amazed that some of you, even process wood by hand at your ages.

[Jim Koepke]

I'm amazed that some of you, even process wood by hand at your ages.

Many of us do not have the space for the machines.

Yesterday making a handrail with hand planes was a good workout. My gym has been closed for a year now. Until the pandemic is over there will be no hurry to go back.

Going in the shop to get about an hour of workout today making another.

Some folks do not like the noise of machines.

Then there is all the dust.

jtk

[Aaron Rosenthal]

Mr. Evans, a comment like “even at your age” might start a few comments!
I just finished a garden gate, made timber framed, bridle joints and half laps. A huge amount of the work was done by hand and I’m 76.
Hand sawing, mortise chopping, dimension planing, grooving; since I don’t have a dust collector at the moment, it’s safer on my lungs if I work by hand.
That being said, getting a board flat and square really makes me work. But hey, a one hour gym workout plus the workshop keeps me fit.

[Michael J Evans]

Aaron
Honestly I didn't realize I had posted that. I was writing a longer reply and then thought I deleted it. To my surprise Jim replied to it and I thought ohh ___. But it was already posted so why not leave it.

It's more a complement. It can be serious work to thickness a board. I hope when I'm 76 I can still do it, if I wish.

[Jim Matthews]

If starting from rough lumber straight out of the sawmill, it can be a challenge.

Most of my stash was purchased from older enthusiasts (moving South) and need only come down a 64th on both faces.

I like applied drawer faces and broad carcass panels.

Dimensioning by hand is necessary, but since the largest are less than 48" long - maybe 30" wide - it's not insurmountable.

Personally, I like the pace of handwork - nobody is paying me, so why rush?

[Aaron Rosenthal]

Once I posted my reply, as I was going to sleep, I thought “O, sh2t, I forgot the LOL!”
Sorry, just hav’n fun.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

The hardest thing to do in the shop is keeping tools hidden that you bought without your wife’s permission. The second hardest is finding that tape measure or pencil that you JUST HAD. The third most difficult thing to do in the shop is accurately dimensioning lumber.