Working with big slabs...

[Terry Hatfield]

The slab craze has made it hard to find large jointers and planers. I have been looking for a 30" jointer for close to a year for someone. My 30" jointer will be the vault on my casket, unless I can track down a 36" machine.

I have two 30" planers showing up next week to go over and get set up for customers who mill the lumber, dry it and want to sell flat surfaces lumber to customers to build this slab craze stuff.

I make good money flattening and planing 30" wide lumber for people. Not everyone wants to do the flatten and surfacing, they want to do the make it pretty part.

I prep it, they do the stuff I dont want to do anyway.

Interesting. I'd love to see those machines in action! What does a 30" jointer weigh? Do you use manpower to move and mill the slabs or do you have some sort of automation? Machines that big are out of the question for me in both size and cost. However, I am strongly considering a 20" or 24" planer. A not exactly local but close enough friend offered to loan his track saw and 12' guide so that piece of the puzzle is solved.

The whole live edge slab thing certainly is the craze of the month/year/decade isn't it? I wanted these slabs because they were wide. The fact that they are live edge is of no relevance to me. I've always bought most every wide board I see. I just love the things even though, as you well know, they present their own set of problems. 15 people have already asked me if I'm putting rocks with blue epoxy in between the slabs. If I can finish out 20" wide boards from these I'd be thrilled.

[Darcy Warner]

Interesting. I'd love to see those machines in action! What does a 30" jointer weigh? Do you use manpower to move and mill the slabs or do you have some sort of automation? Machines that big are out of the question for me in both size and cost. However, I am strongly considering a 20" or 24" planer. A not exactly local but close enough friend offered to loan his track saw and 12' guide so that piece of the puzzle is solved.

The whole live edge slab thing certainly is the craze of the month/year/decade isn't it? I wanted these slabs because they were wide. The fact that they are live edge is of no relevance to me. I've always bought most every wide board I see. I just love the things even though, as you well know, they present their own set of problems. 15 people have already asked me if I'm putting rocks with blue epoxy in between the slabs. If I can finish out 20" wide boards from these I'd be thrilled.

My 30" jointer is about 3500 pounds.
I use man power. You can pause in the middle of a pass and that slab isnt going anywhere laying there.

My 30" buss 4l is about 6k pounds, my 36" buss 44 is 8900, my 30" double whitney is 13k pounds.
Couple 24s kicking around as well, mostly other Buss's.

I would love a 36" straightOplane, but they are spendy, expensive to fix and about 18k pounds.

[Terry Hatfield]

My 30" jointer is about 3500 pounds.
I use man power. You can pause in the middle of a pass and that slab isnt going anywhere laying there.

My 30" buss 4l is about 6k pounds, my 36" buss 44 is 8900, my 30" double whitney is 13k pounds.
Couple 24s kicking around as well, mostly other Buss's.

I would love a 36" straightOplane, but they are spendy, expensive to fix and about 18k pounds.

Very cool indeed. I can't imagine that any of those machines are not spendy and expensive to fix.

[Van Huskey]

I would love a 36" straightOplane, but they are spendy, expensive to fix and about 18k pounds.

The 170s usually have something like 120hp between the three motors, right?

Oh and you are going to need a bigger forklift...

[Darcy Warner]

The 170s usually have something like 120hp between the three motors, right?

Oh and you are going to need a bigger forklift...

Pretty close on the HP. The itch heads required more hp than the straight knife ones.

I can use the forklift buddy system.

[Terry Hatfield]

The 170s usually have something like 120hp between the three motors, right?

Oh and you are going to need a bigger forklift...

Wait. 120 hp? Do all the lights dim in the county when one hits the switch?

[Darcy Warner]

Wait. 120 hp? Do all the lights dim in the county when one hits the switch?

My weinig 22al is 170 amps at 480v. 120hp is nothing really.

[Van Huskey]

My weinig 22al is 170 amps at 480v. 120hp is nothing really.

You preempted my cutesy answer about how when you start turning Redwoods into toothpicks you will be sucking all the power down from Chicago and the murder rate will double during the blackout... guess that's more dark than cute.

If you do get one and do the tandem forklift dance a video is mandatory. I also wanna see your kids playing on it like a jungle gym. <the last part was NOT meant to sound creepy, I always think its cool that you post pics on SM of your machines with the kids, it adds a funny layer of perspective.

[Darcy Warner]

They like helping, I like having them around.
Quality time that some day wont be there anymore.

[Martin Wasner]

A widebelt will work, sorta. They need faced, skip planed, ripped one edge, planed close, then sanded.

I haven't met a wide belt that will flatten lumber effectively.

The big 3 head machines with an abrasive head first come close, but it's just a bit better than shoving it through a planer thinking it will miraculously flatten twisted or bowed lumber.

They still don't flatten anything well.

Big jointer, or a cnc. If the material is much longer than 10' you're going to be pretty hosed with the cnc as well. 5x10 is super common, but bigger than that is an oddity.

[Van Huskey]

They like helping, I like having them around.
Quality time that some day wont be there anymore.

Some of the best times of my childhood were with my father in his machine shop. I also enjoyed the times when he was out of the shop and his workers would put me to "work" on machines I had no business running.

[Terry Hatfield]

They like helping, I like having them around.
Quality time that some day wont be there anymore.

This ^^ I wasted most of my children's formative years on trying to succeed in business. Looking back now, they were much more interested in having time with me than having the things. I'm employing my now 32 year old son to help get these slabs properly stacked for drying over Thanksgiving though. That'll be some quality time. We'll finish it off with some Advil.

[Greg Parrish]

Never tried this product and realize you can make your own but looks like a slick slab flattening setup with their flattening bit. Might give you some ideas if nothing else.

https://www.stonecoatcountertops.com...-page/slab-jig

[Patrick Varley]

Never tried this product and realize you can make your own but looks like a slick slab flattening setup with their flattening bit. Might give you some ideas if nothing else.

https://www.stonecoatcountertops.com...-page/slab-jig

They have a nice thought. But that's tragically overpriced for the design. No easy height adjustment, and the casters allowing easy "north/south" movement seems problematic. Nick Offerman's design from FWW #222 is more flexible, and cost me like $100 plus a few hours of work.

[Paul Girouard]

There’s a few different brands of “planer bits” ranging from $20.00 Uxcell brand 2” side cutter , to $80.00 , Whitesides brand four wing 1 1/2” width of cut.

It would seem the Whitesides bit would cut smoother and with less strain on th router due to the smaller section of cut, anyone have one of these wider bits??

I have a Offermen sled and us a Dewalt 3 HP plunger router DW618 IIRC is the big DeWalt plunger router. I‘Ve been using a 1” bottom cutting bit from Grizzly.

TIA so any comments.