Thickness sand one side flat on rough cut wood?

[Bob Knodel]

I have roughly 100 bf of 5/4 quarter sawn oak that needs to have one 1 side flat to start with. I have a 6" jointer and a 13" planer but unless I build a planer sled I am going to have to find someone with a large jointer. Most of the boards are 8 to 12 inches wide. Two of them are over 10 feet long. I picked these boards up last month for $250.00 and they have been stored in this guys barn for 25 years. Beautiful stuff. Anyway, one of the local cabinet makers has a large thickness sander that I can rent time on but am I correct in my thinking that I would also need a sled for the sander in order to make one side flat? Any other options? I guess I could hand plane one side flat?

Thanks,

Bob

[Josiah Bartlett]

Yes, a thicknessing sander is just a planer with a sanding drum instead of knives. What do you have against making a sled? For wood this expensive, it seems like the right thing to do, or else find somebody with a big jointer.

[Bob Knodel]

. What do you have against making a sled?

Pure Laziness:D I guess I will just add that to the project list.

[Simon Dupay]

Actually, a Timesaver isn't like a planer the rollers are there to hold down the broad they don't have as much pressure as a feed roller on a planer would have and the wood is fed by a conveyor belt on a longer bed so a sander can flatten a broad without a shed.

[Jules Dominguez]

You'll be better off if you leave the boards as is until you have specific projects and cutting lists for them. Then cut the boards you need a little bit oversize before you try to mill them straight and flat. You'll get better results and lose less wood that way.

[Art Mann]

Pay attention to Jules!!

[Richard M. Wolfe]

Second the motion from Jules. I have some really nice wood that I just had to put an slick surface on just to see how good it looked. It did. I know what I want to use it for but haven't gotten to it yet and it's set for a long time without a finish so naturally it's changed color and 'aged'. To get the surface I want I'll have to take it below 3/4".

[Joe Chritz]

Third!

Jules has good advice for a lot of reasons but I will also second the advice that with light passes a sander can flatten a board. The rollers don't have to be as tight as a planer.

If you need to do a bunch it is worth the time to build a sled.

Joe

[James Suzda]

Third!

Jules has good advice for a lot of reasons but I will also second the advice that with light passes a sander can flatten a board. The rollers don't have to be as tight as a planer.

If you need to do a bunch it is worth the time to build a sled.

Joe
I just did this with a cupped 12 inch wide board by using my 16/32 and some 80 grit paper. It took a lot of light cut passes!! ;)

[Jeff Duncan]

I'm thinking when your ready to use it, the same shop with the widebelt probably has a bigger jointer too? Instead of using their widebelt maybe have them flatten one face for you?
JeffD

[Chris Padilla]

I'm thinking when your ready to use it, the same shop with the widebelt probably has a bigger jointer too? Instead of using their widebelt maybe have them flatten one face for you?
JeffD

Bingo! That was my thought. Find someone with a jointer to do those boards justice. After all, that is precisely what a jointer is good for: face planing one side of a board FLAT.

And when they face plane one side flat, might as well have them turn it on edge and give you a 90 degree corner relative to the flat face and THEN you can take it home and finish the milling with your own equipment. QED! :D

[Bob Knodel]

I'm thinking when your ready to use it, the same shop with the widebelt probably has a bigger jointer too? Instead of using their widebelt maybe have them flatten one face for you?
JeffD

Nope. That was my first question to them. I'm sure someone around has to have one though. I'll keep searching.

I do have a project that I am working on right now. I picked up a solid quarter sawn oak mission style dining set off Craigslist for $250.00 with four chairs. The top has a spot of missing stain the size of a fist from where they spilled something on it. That was all that was wrong with it! It has wings on the end that fold down and no leafs. My project with this table is to make 2 leafs and refinish the whole top. I will then move onto a coffee table.

Bob

[Bob Feeser]

I'm with Jules on this one. Depending on how flat the boards are, trying to joint a 10 foot board, or even way less, that has any kind of twist, or warpage, you may wind up with a 1/4" board on one side of an end, and 7/8" in the middle. By waiting until you need to use it, and cutting it slightly oversized, you can take a curved board, and work on 2 "straight" sections instead. Less wasted material. Plus you do not want to pre-joint a board just to have it lay around. I purposely pre-cut so as to

Not do a lot more planing then I have to, with the clean up of emptying the waste etc.
Keep the unused stuff in it's orginal skin to prevent uneven moisture absorption/evaporation.So even if you have someone with a large jointer, jointing one side ahead of time, has its disadvantages.

[Chris Padilla]

Keep the unused stuff in it's orginal skin to prevent uneven moisture absorption/evaporation.
So even if you have someone with a large jointer, jointing one side ahead of time, has its disadvantages.

Frankly, I'd want to know if my board is going to go all squirrely on me well before I plan to do anything with it because then I may toss the board or know that I need to chop it up to get straight material out of it. There is nothing quite like finding a good project for a large board but then upon milling, have it all come apart on you.

Technically, I don't think it really matters how far you mill your wood before you have a project in mind for it. I do agree that rough wood wears and takes a beating better than surfaced stuff but then it is just a matter of being careful handling/storing your wood. I dunno, 6 of one, half-dozen of the other. :)

[Peter Quadarella]

How about using all the money you saved on that wood to buy a jointer :D.

[Rob Diz]

Not to lose momentum, here's another vote for a planer sled. But it doesn't need to be anything fancy. I had some figured cherry that was wider than my jointer. I went to the Borg and it turned out they had some MDF scraps that were 12 inches wide - wider than any of my boards. I got that sheet for a buck.

Then I took it home and used two sided tape and some shims to shim the boards so they would not rock onthe mdf. Put it through the planer a few times, and voila- one flat side.

It was so easy I wonder why I had not done it earlier.

I made 4 8/4 boards flate on one side, then resawed 'em and made 4 bookmatched tabletops. The whole thing turned out quite nicely. BTW, none of the tabletops showed any ill effect of the jointing method - no cups or twists were evident, partiuclarly when I ran 'em under a drum sander after glue up.

Sometimes you (or should I say one) needs a bit of a push to do something.

Consider this your push to try a planer sled.

I would suggest you use mdf because it is more reliably flat than plywood. just my .02.

[Frank Drew]

You can flatten a board that's wider than your jointer (but less than twice as wide) by running it through in one direction then flipping and running the rest of that face through in the other direction; it's easiest if you set the fence so that you're cutting a little more than half the width of the board with each pass. (If the board is seriously in wind you'll have concentrate on the high spots first.) There will probably be a bit of a step from uneven jointing in the middle of the board but this doesn't matter when you run it through your planer -- even though uneven, that jointed side is still flat for the purpose of creating a flat upper surface. Once that face is good enough, turn it over run the originally face planed side through the planer.

Even though I had a 12" jointer I still had to deal with wider stock from time to time and this method worked fine (and I'm finicky.)

[Bob Knodel]

Thanks for all of the help on this. I guess I did need a push just to make the sled. I have enough MDF to make it so that is what I will do. Baseball is in full swing now though (I coach Junior Baseball 9-10 year olds)so I think I may put everything off until it's over.

Thanks again,

Bob