4 head planers

[J.R. Rutter]

Weinig Quattromat, SCMI Sintex, Martin T90 all are 4-head S4S machines with a jointer infeed. The Martin will even handle random width material if needed.

I use a 5-head moulder for cabinet door production. Very nearly every board gets ripped into strips and fed through it to s4s. With attention paid to how much material gets removed top and bottom, it typically works out well - especially if you pre-chop into shorter rough lengths. Flattest/straightest goes for the larger doors and the crowned stuff goes to smaller stuff like matching drawer faces or glued up into slabs. Keeping careful track of crown helps avoid twist at least...

[andy photenas]

No gear changing I asked how to make door stock from rough stock and it seems most ppl would know to use 4/4 for that.

thanks for the info i will do more research on the s2s that seems the best option for me in my case

Does anyone know if s2s is jointed or run through a 4 head planer to get it close to end goal thickness ?

[J.R. Rutter]

No gear changing I asked how to make door stock from rough stock and it seems most ppl would know to use 4/4 for that.

thanks for the info i will do more research on the s2s that seems the best option for me in my case

Does anyone know if s2s is jointed or run through a 4 head planer to get it close to end goal thickness ?

S2S varies from supplier to supplier, but the better companies will use a double sided planer with a "finger chain" feed that does joint some on one face before hitting the second face parallel. But there is only so much you can do with a long board going from rough 4/4 to 15/16 or 13/16. Garbage in, garbage out.

For me, if I have to get rough stock because that is all that is available, I will rip it and then take two passes through the moulder with no side heads so that it does end up being an S2S H&M on the first pass, and then and S4S on the second pass. And I will still do crosscuts on the rough rips as needed to end up with flatter stock. Normally, I buy 15/16 and skim it to 0.85" to finish the doors out at 13/16"

[Mark Bolton]

No gear changing I asked how to make door stock from rough stock and it seems most ppl would know to use 4/4 for that.

thanks for the info i will do more research on the s2s that seems the best option for me in my case

Does anyone know if s2s is jointed or run through a 4 head planer to get it close to end goal thickness ?

As JR said, what you have access to for S2S can vary a lot. Its worth asking when you call for hardwood pricing or whoever is going to surface your material. If they are simply running stock through a conventional planer (regardless of size, 2 sided, 4 sided) you are going to have zero jointing. Depending on the prices you get for the quantities you buy, even having the rough knocked off the boards and letting them get you to hit or miss, and one straight edge, will help you immensely. At the very least it will eliminate hauling all those chips back to your shop in board form only to then have to get rid of them. Same for the off-falls on the straight line rip. Your going to cut it off anyway. Why load it in your vehicle, pack it home, just to throw it away.

As always, if your doing something odd, or buying some odd piece of material where you need all the thickness you can get to get it flat, you may still have to start from rough.

My small shop, I just cant deal with all the chips, the waste, and the time, to start from dead rough. And while I enjoy the cost savings of buying lower grades of material and being able to cull out the super nice high grade thats mixed in, I more often than not simply dont have the time nor the space to sort/grade material in-house and then sit on the high grade thinking Im going to save it for something special. For that reason I typically bring in the highest grade I possibly can across the board, surfaced to whatever the job calls for (allowing for sanding and flattening if needed) so that pretty much every board comes straight off the pack and goes to work.

As JR outlined, in-house grading and surfacing is a MAJOR undertaking even for small quantities of material.