Milling stock with a combination of hand and power tools

[Ted Fullerton]

I've wondering about the practicality of my thinking here...

I'm just getting to the point where I can see the limitations of only working with 3/4 red oak from Home Depot, and I'm ready to start designing with custom milled stock in a variety of species.

I have a table saw, circular saw with straightedge, router/table, and a "hammering" bench made of 2x6s.

I'm thinking of buying a jack plane and a smoothing plane, a lunchbox planer, and some stock to make a proper, flat workbench. (I'll learn the planes on the benchtop).

So, assume that I'm starting with rough-sawn lumber, how about this process:

1. Cut to length
2. Plane one side flat using jack and smoothing planes.
3. Thickness plane using the lunchbox planer
4. Straight-line rip using circular saw or table saw with jig.
5. Rip to width with table saw.

It seems to me that with that process, I could mill stock pretty efficiently without buying a jointer. I'm thinking that the handplane work would take a half-hour to 45 minutes for a 6'x8" board, and that I'd get a surface that's just as good for thickness planing going that route than from an 8" jointer.

Does anyone work this way, or have tried it and abondoned it? Am I missing something critical?

Thanks,

-Ted

[Tom Jones III]

Your thinking is pretty good and I think you will be able to refine it with experience. Here are a few tips from my experiences.
1. Cut to lenght + an inch or two longer
4. Make yourself a jointer plane and edge joint it with the hand plane. Very easy and quick and safe.

Depending on the rough stock you choose and your level of practice you may be able to get a board reasonably flat in far less than 30'.

[Matt Day]

I'd go the planer sled method personally. I don't trust my hand planing skills enough, or that my planes are tuned well enough, to hand plane the face of all my boards. Maybe the planer sled method to get close, then hand plane the high spots would be best?

[Ron Blaise]

first with the lunch box because, plaining boards causes some stress relief so you won't know how parallel your boards will be till that's done first. Second, I go along with building a leveling sled for the lunch box. You do as you wish but, that plainer will save you a ton of money and properly set up will eliminate a lot of handwork. Third, if your going to glue up boards you'll more than likely have to plain them down after so don't do more than clean them up before that. If you have a good glue-line rip blade for your table saw that should work just fine. I didn't have a jointer for a long time and got great cuts from my table saw for glue-ups. Enjoy your new toys :D

[Rob Millard]

Ted,
I use nearly the same method, and I’m completely satisfied with the results; the power jointer is a tool I have no desire to own. The only thing I do differently is, I use the bandsaw for ripping and clean up the joints with a jointer plane. I have no experience with glue line rip blades, but I feel that they would require a heavy duty, well tuned saw, to be effective.

You won’t have to get the one side perfectly flat with the hand planes, just flat enough that the board doesn’t rock as it goes through the planer. This will go very quickly, and you’ll spend on the order of 5 minutes getting a side flat. Of course the thinner the board, the more completely you have to flatten the one side, because the feed rollers can distort the board. I attached an auxiliary bed to my planer to make it more accurate; I used a piece of 36” pre-finished melamine shelf material.
Rob Millard
www.americanfederalperiod.com (http://www.americanfederalperiod.com)

[Andrew Williams]

I pretty much do it the way you mentioned, except I don't handplane the reference face to perfect smoothness. First crosscut about 6" too long, I just try to remove twist and most of the bow. Running the board through the planer, reference face down, until I get a smooth surface, then flip it over and get a smooth surface on the reference face. I then go back to the bench and check it. By then it tends to be pretty close to nice, and I usually still have quite a bit of stock left to remove so the planer will get it down to perfect by the time I am at thickness. Alternate sides! If I am not removing much stock, I may need to handplane some more before going back to the planer. My planer is not heavy so it does not press cup out of a thick piece of wood, and that is a good thing, since it tends to simply plane cup out of the board. If it is a thin piece, and it's cupped, I guess I would not bother with it, since it would be REALLY thin by the time I de-cupped it.

After I have 2 nice faces, I joint one edge with the jointer plane and 90 degree fence (I love that fence). One thing I have learned is to clean up the other edge from rough sawn shards, otherwise ripping it on the tablesaw is sure to leave me with painful splinters.

After this I like to use a smoothing plane to remove any machine marks left by the planer or tablesaw. If the wood is crazy-grained I might scrape it right now. I find it easier to do this final smoothing now rather than wait until the thing is glued up. There will be some necessary, of course, but not as much.

Finally I check the first crosscut for square and then crosscut to final dimension, maybe block planing the crosscut edge if it is going to show.

[Per Swenson]

Andrew,

I deal with rough sawn for a living.

What I do may raise some eyebrows amongst the purist's.

In order to eat though, I have no time for dilly dallying.

Lumber comes off the truck, gets stacked and seperated.

Reasonably straight goes straight to the planer.

Down to 15/16 or so.

Smooth both sides.

From there out to horses and edged jointed with a guided circular saw system.

Stacked and marked in chalk for dimension and use.

Then ripped final on the other edge with the table saw.

For problem boards I make a sled for the planer.

For real problem boards I use winding sticks, chalk, a straight edge and a

power planer to knock down the high spots.

When I set my mind to it and stay off the computer,

a thousand board feet in a day is about right.

Per

planer to

[Ted Miller]

Per, Most of what you get is it kilned or aired dried and what are the bf $ on some of the stock you get. Here they only keep the price while you are on the phone, call back and the price went up a few cents per bf...

[Per Swenson]

Ted,

I ain't tellin what I pay.:D

But its kiln dried. From the boat to the yard to the shop.

Two thousand bdft minimum. We try to take 4000 at a shot.

You should see the look of the concerned neighbors when we

block the street with a semi and hire every munchkin in the

neigerborhood to off load by hand.

Oh the joy's of doing commercial work in a residential neighbor hood.

No worries though. We have been here a very long time.

With one hell of a hobby.

Here is a shot of their yard and kiln.

Per

[Tom Jones III]

Down to 15/16 or so.
Smooth both sides.


What do you mean "Smooth both sides."

[Per Swenson]

Tom,

Just that.

That 4/4 mahogany actually measures out to 5/4

And its way rough.

I knock it down 3/16 one side then a 1/8th on the other.

Gives me 15/16 th's to play with.

All of our moldings and such go through at 7/8ths

So now matter what the decision, face frames, doors, paneling,molding

whatever... I know the big stack is workable for everything but Barrail.

[Ted Fullerton]

Per,

So, as long as the board isn't rocking corner to corner, or side to side, you just run it through the planer to establish a flat face?

The conventianal wisdom say to buy a jointer, then buy a wider jointer, to get a perfectly flat face before getting near the planer. Sounds like perfection is not essential?

There might be hope for by bank account yet...

-Ted

[Tom Jones III]

I believe that it works for Per because he is using mahogany. It comes very flat and straight already. If he were using another species that does not grow so straight and evenly then he may or may not be able to get away with it.

He can also get away with it b/c he has lumber to burn. One of my lumber yards sells 4/4 rough that is 15/16" if you are lucky. It is commonly 7/8" so you don't have any room for the time saving skip planing that Per is doing.

Your original plan, with Andrew's comments, sounds like a good plan for any type of wood. If you restrict yourself to the best behaved woods and a good supplier then you can move more towards Pers methods. In real life, you will just have to keep your methods on a sliding scale between the two extremes.

[Per Swenson]

Tom is absolutely right.

And I should be ashamed of myself.

We do have lumber to burn and off times I forget that.

The way I do it works for our little mass production operation,

and should not be confused with those on a limited wood budget.

My apologies.

Ted, that is exactly what I do.

Per