Planing small pieces

[Ken George]

I have an idea for a laminated turning and purchased a Craftsman planer to plane the pieces. While reading the manual it states that boards shorted than 15" should not be planed. My pieces are 12" long. Not having used a planer before this was a surprise. So, my question is how do you flatten both sides of a piece and assure the sides are parallel?

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Ken

[Bill Kesler]

You can make a sled for the planer that is long enough to run through. Be sure to put leading and following pieces to hold the one you're planing and to prevent snipe. You can also use a drum sander if you have access to one. There are plans on the forums to make one.
Hope this helps.

Bill

[Reed Gray]

I have an older Delta planer, not one of the bench top models. I can run pieces through that are 12 inches long with no problem. I do keep a hand on the wood as it goes in, and a hand on it as it comes out. The main problem is snipe. This is where the knives dig in because one of the feed rollers isn't on the wood going in, or is off the wood coming out. There is always some of this. If I want it really flat and smooth, I use a drum sander. I can run short pieces through, down to 6 inches if I run several of them at a time, and line them up end to end, with ends touching. This makes it more like a longer board, and this may work as well on your planer. You can get some snipe with the drum sanders as well, so make any pieces longer than you need so you can trim the ends off, or use a long board, plane it first, then cut it to length.
robo hippy

[Matt Wolboldt]

So there are a few ways to skin a cat. You could use a jointer and planer in combination. The jointer to get one flat face and the planer to make the other face parallel and dimensioned. Or you could use a planer sled to flatten one side and then flip it over to flatten the other. Or you could use a hand plane. Hope this helps.
Matt

[Bob Hamilton]

In order to safely use the planer the piece of wood needs to be long enough to span the distance between the infeed and outfeed rollers plus a couple of inches. You definitely do NOT want a piece of wood to get trapped between the rollers. The cutting action of the planer knives will be trying to push the wood back out on the infeed side as well as trying to lift it. The infeed roller is holding it down against the planer bed as well as feeding it into the cutter. There needs to be a bit of length outside the infeed roller bearing down on the infeed table to resist the lifting force of the knives until the leading end of the piece passes under and is held down by the outfeed roller. That is why there is a minimum length that can be planed.

The best solution is to plane your boards to finished thickness while they are still long enough to plane safely. Next best is to attach them to a carrier board with double sided tape or something similar, but I would not try that with pieces that are shorter than the distance between the infeed and outfeed rollers because if the tape let go while a piece was between the rollers it could become a projectile. Light cuts with sharp blades will exert the least amount of force on the workpiece.

Good Luck!
Bob