Wide boards

[Mark Stutz]

...were never something I ever used or could use, since I only had a 6" tailed jointer. Now even those nice 12inchers with a little twist are no problem!:D ;) Just a few minutes witha scrub and a few more with a jack, and afew m ore with a jointer,and it's ready for the planer. I know, I know, but the tailed apprentice is a timesaver.

I know I'm preachin' to the choir here, but just had to share.

Mark

[Zahid Naqvi]

congrats for the promotion to the next plateau of workmanship. If only I can develop enough patience to work through the stage of flattening.

[Don C Peterson]

Flattening boards by hand is one of the first things I attempted to do when I was getting into woodworking. I will admit to quite a bit of frustration in those early days, but with perseverance I've really come to enjoy that aspect of my projects.

Dimensioning is another story though. Trying to get a large board flat AND uniform thickness is a LOT of work. I finally broke down and bought a tailed planer earlier this year and it has saved me tons of time.

[Jim Nardi]

Oh what fun it is. Find someone and pass the skills on that's the ultimate joy.

[harry strasil]

I like wide boards. I have several over 12 inches, but no way to work them down they are 1 inch and 1 1/8 think I think, one is 16 inches wide.

One thing about planing boards, never just plane one side, it opens the grain again or something and they will ward and twist overnight.

Widest boards I have personally seen are in an old Store Counter from a defunct business in a now almost defunct town. A fella has the counter in his shop building. Its 22 or so feet long, 32 inches tall, and 30 inches wide. The Top which is wider than the counter base, all 3 shelves under the counter and the front are all one board wide, of old growth pine from the late 1800's.

Also another old woodworker friend who used to work at a lumber yard when they got there lumber stock in in bales of random width lumber, has quite a collection of 2 inch lumber 12 to 24 inches wide that at that time it was to expensive to rip down to size so he was told to burn it. He took it home. A real treasure trove to me. He let me look at his lumber storage area. I think I got muddy shoes from all the drooling I did at the sight.

I think I mentioned this before somewhere, but a local second generation clothing store closed its doors and as the building was always rented, the business owner asked me if I wanted the shelving that was in the finished basement. A friend and I went to have a look and I took my 10 foot open trailer. The electricity had been turned off so we used flashlignts and then I got some dropcords out and started my welder and used the floodlights from my service truck and we dissasembled a later mid floor storage rack of plain barn boards and 2 by 4's first, then we took the two wall shelfs apart, each shelf they were I believe 5 high including the bottom one, was made of a 1 by 10 and a 1 by 12 with 2 nails at each end 2 at mid point and then 2 more at midway between the center and ends, for a total of 10 finish nail holes per board. One set was 14 foot long, the other 16 foot long. they had been shellaced or varnished so the tops were dark looking from age. We barely had enough room to make the turn to get them out the small freight opening in the side of the building. The trailer was setting under a street light and the first layer the width of the trailer were placed nails down, when loading the second layer bottom up is when the heart attack almost came. Turns out these shelves were put in when the building was first built in 1896 or so by the the clothing store owner, each and every board was clear, not a knot in the whole lot, only problem when I got them down into my basement thru a small window was, I had to build a bigger storage rack and the exposed edge of each shelf board was full of tacks and thumbnails and staples from attaching signs and price tags. I ended up with almost a full tuna can of things I removed, not including the 10 nails per board.

I have so far only used a portion of one board to build this tool box for my son in laws father, sans metal of any kind. Really makes my delta lunch box planer, which I purchased on sale specifically for this, howl taking just enough off the faces to get rid of the finish and age marks.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/wood/bob2.jpg

[Tyler Howell]

Well done Mark,
Enjoy.

[Bill Brehme]

Just makes me want that scrub plane and #7 or #8 that much more.:o

Aw Jeez, THE SLOPE HAS GONE VERTICAL!!!:eek:

[Bob Smalser]

I avoid boards wider than 8" like the plague, even in VG stock with zero grain runout. With modern glues available, there is no structural reason to use them.

They are much more prone to go out of flat, ruining the looks of your perfect joints and in structural applications less strong than a layup. I resaw and bookmatch my panels for more reasons than just looks. In outdoor wood like boats they are an even worse idea because they often crack. Rarely do I go wider than 6" in a boat without a layup.

[Gary Herrmann]

...were never something I ever used or could use, since I only had a 6" tailed jointer. Now even those nice 12inchers with a little twist are no problem!:D ;) Just a few minutes witha scrub and a few more with a jack, and afew m ore with a jointer,and it's ready for the planer. I know, I know, but the tailed apprentice is a timesaver.

I know I'm preachin' to the choir here, but just had to share.

Mark

Show off! Post a pic, so I can at least pretend.

[Doug Shepard]

I tackled a 22" piece of junky pine this summer as a favor for my uncle
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=57646
but would have loved to cut it into narrower boards, joint, plane, then reglue. On the positive side, I got to practice some wide board flattening on somebody else's wood.

[Joe Meazle]

congrats for the promotion to the next plateau of workmanship. If only I can develop enough patience to work through the stage of flattening.
Way to go Mark. Welcome to the darkside.
I may be in minority here but I enjoy flattening, and find that if you keep to a progression of planes it goes pretty quick. I have a cheap blue Record #5 (heavy casting) that I use as my scrub on bad boards and a Millers Fall #18 (Bailey #6 size) for better boards. I am not a fan of the #40 type scrubs. Then I have a MF #24 (Bailey size #8) or Veritas BU jointer to face joint. Then it is just which ever smother and scraper gets along best with that board.

If I am pressed for time or have a ton to do, I will pull out the DJ20 but in my small shop some time it is easier and quicker to just do it by hand, more fun too.

I am going to make some proper winding sticks when I come up with the right scraps. Right now I just use a pair of metal straight edge tool guides.