Guys, levelling the slab with hand planes is only part of the problem. The slab is too thick to use as is. It needs to be resawn. Planing is straightforward. Resawing is not.
Regards from Perth
Derek
Contributor
Guys, levelling the slab with hand planes is only part of the problem. The slab is too thick to use as is. It needs to be resawn. Planing is straightforward. Resawing is not.
Regards from Perth
Derek
Contributor
Bill, if you want a 5" top that is up to you. Keep in mind that it is like having a lion for a pet. A lion is beautiful but in the end it will do as it wants and you can't control it. I think I would look for someone with a bandsaw mill that is good with it and resaw it. Keeping in mind that if you cut say 2" off of it you will need to let it rest for a while before you flatten it. As far as planes go, Jack, jointer, smoother. A lot like flattening a bench. Good luck with your project. Please post some progress pictures. It should be fun.
Jim
Member
Now you tell me...was a good way to learn how to dub and that a back-bevel is your buddy.Originally Posted by Derek Cohen
Member
Agreed, it would be very nice to see some pics from the progress. Dereks suggestion of ripping the board into narrower parts has some merit. If the slab is very cupped, this is a way to reduce the amount of flattening needed. Ripping say in the middle, then resaw, and then joint the edges so that the glue-up is as flat as possible. This is how I did when glueing up my workbench top.
Contributor
Seems to me the only practical way to make this thinner is to plane it away via automated means. Bandmills and saw mills will be hard pressed to grip 5" on edge and get it anywhere close to the middle. You could look for someone with a chainsaw mill and a 30" bar and go wide of the mark, but seems like a huge hassle. If it were me, I'd look for a local yard with a 30" planer and have them get it to within a 1/4" of you desired thickness. If you then want to work at the final surface with hand planes, you can have at it.
The router sled idea, which I've mentioned before, is a worthy method to accomplish this. You could put the bad side up and work at a 1/4 cut until the bottom is flat. Then you can flip it bad side down and go at it from the top. It is surprisingly accurate and will set you up perfectly for final hand planing of the top. Working with hand tools is fun, but this task is akin to digging your way out of Alcatraz with a teaspoon and garden trowel.
It just occurred to me, you could take a circular saw and set it for a 2" depth of cut and score the top every inch on one side. Once you are done, get your favorite mallet and framing chisel and work along the score marks, busting that waste away. It will look ugly when you are done, but that will give you a spot to work with your handplanes. If you attempt to true the top before you score, the bottom of the saw cuts will be a good reference point to where you have to plane to. Might be your best bet considering your desire to work it with hand tools.
Last edited by Pete Taran; 02-03-2018 at 3:23 PM.
Member
For flattening I think a beech jack plane is the best option. If you want a premium plane I recommend Steve Voigt.
I did not see anything suggesting that Bill wanted a thinner plank. It sounds as if he got the three planks cut to his specifications. If I wanted to resaw the plank by machine I would look for a horizontal band mill or a horizontal resaw. To cut by hand I would use a pit saw or a four foot veneer saw.
Member
That slab has enough wood in it to make a whole coffee table and two end tables and plenty to spare. Cut it length wise in half and you'll be able to find plenty of bandsaws that can resaw that into 4/4 stock. Then you can use that to your best advantage. Even keep a section at 8/4 for your leg stock if you wish. A 5 inch thick coffee table top is going to look bad, period.
Member
+1, unless one wants a stump-style coffee table.
There are many ways or flattening projects that one can do with hand tools. But why begin the path with something like this?
Simon
Last edited by Simon MacGowen; 02-03-2018 at 7:27 PM.
I know that's thick but I figured with equally heavy legs the proportions would downplay the top's massive size. Maybe not.
Anyway, that has been my plan up til now. Maybe I should be thinking about having it sawn in 2.
The wife likes the idea of the 5", so that's in my favor. She also wants to retain the full live edge on the sides....bark on.
It ain't going to happen right away, anyway. Too many promises of bowls to fill. Three of my 4 siblings and a half dozen other people keep hammering me for their bowl.
Should have kept the lathe secret for a while. At least til I figure out what I'm doing.
Just watched one YouTube video. That looks like a lot of work.
Just to put this work in context. You may want to watch a few Mr. Chickadee videos. This guy fells logs, hews timbers from the logs and builds things with them. He built a log cabin and a workshop, with some help from his wife. He uses old timber framing joints/techniques to make buildings from his hand hewn timbers. All the work is done with hand tools, mostly by the one guy. He has a whole series of videos on YouTube. The point being that solutions are often in the skill set of the woodworker more than the specific tools.
https://youtu.be/s8GP68nLpEY
Here are the planes I typically use for this type work:
6E5422F4-3B2F-425E-892C-372987A37B4F.jpg
Top left is a Veritas Custom 5 1/2, next to it is a Custom #5, the wood plane on the back row is an EMC scrub, the last plane is a Veritas LA Jack. The wood scrub takes a very narrow shaving which so far has limited how much it gets used, at least on this red oak log. The Custom #5 has moderate to heavy camber as does the 5 1/2. I like a heavier plane for this work as the weight helps get through knots and heavy shavings. I like the chip breakers and adjustable mouths on the Veritas planes. Stanley planes adjust mouth openings via the frog which in my experience dramatically reduces the speed and accuracy of adjusting the opening. One may want to consider that this work dulls blades fairly fast. The Veritas screws, on either side of the plane blade, allow one to-remove the blade and sharpen it, without messing with how the blade was set up. This speeds up sharpening and reduces the fiddling with depth & side to side adjustments significantly. I would not consider any plane without an adjustable mouth for this type work, as I find adjusting the mouth opening helpful, depending on the species of wood, size/shape of shaving......The LA Jack comes in handy with “interesting” grain patterns or situations where the bevel down planes just are not “cutting it”. Approaching the wood from a different plane angle sometimes helps. Sometimes taking a wider but narrower shaving can speed the work up. Think total volume of shaving.
Clean up entails a large dust/chip container and a broom, although I may use a shop vac if I want the floor or bench cleaner.
ED75B89B-7DEB-4365-8C43-8DABE8F7DB36.jpg
Last edited by Mike Holbrook; 02-04-2018 at 8:15 AM.
Contributor
I would leave that slab heavy, resawing 5” flat sawn material is going to yield two hugely cupped boards that are going to finish out much thinner, like 1.5”.
I resaw a lot, it’s a dangerous gamewhenever I cut down heavy material I saw off the faces and set them aside, they usually cup to the point of being useless, then I work with whatever remains.
Bumbling forward into the unknown.
Member
I would leave that slab heavy, resawing 5” flat sawn material is going to yield two hugely cupped boards that are going to finish out much thinner, like 1.5”.
I resaw a lot, it’s a dangerous game
This is why successful re-sawing usually involves ripping first.
Seems I remember a film about George Nakashima, after all this is what the task at hand is revolving around, and it went into the elaborate and extensive care taken to season his woods. Even so, I have to wonder how the people with some of his pieces have experienced their lives together.
Mike, I admire Mr. Chickadee's skills. Makes me wish I had gotten into woodworking sooner in life. I like that kind of doing the job in a world where most everything has been taken over by technology. On the other hand, at almost 68 it looks to be too late in life to develop those skills.
Don't get me wrong...with many years of CNC behind my belt I also love the feeling I get knowing how to control machines with programs. I was fortunate in that I had the freedom to edit programs delivered to me by "guys up front", or writing my own.
I do realize that skill is no longer of any worth...the programs written with software instead of by machine operators. Nothing made my day more interesting and rewarding , as well as shorter, than problem solving via program editing.
Contributor
Bill,
One of my Dad's greatest regrets, who is now 80, is not just doing stuff he wanted to when he was "younger". No one knows how much time they have and how well their body will fare in the later years. If there is something that you want to do, I say get about doing it and don't worry about how old you are. With the man off your back, now is the perfect time to do things you always wanted to.
FWIW
Pete
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