Preparing Stock By Hand - Sequence?

[Erich Weidner]

Many/most hand tool enthusiasts will use some power tools. Many of us just don't have the time

I'm not swearing off power tools, but I am trying to get as much usable space out of my shop (which is half of a 2 car garage, and I need to be able to park a car in the other half)as possible. I've never owned a power planer/jointer, and now I'm taking a very hard look at everything in the garage for it to justify any precious wall or floor space it consumes. I want to keep the table saw, or perhaps replace with a smaller TS and/or bandsaw for ripping. But the TS I have now is just too big. The dust collector takes up a lot of room, and at present it is only used with the TS and router table. If I ditch the TS and Router Table, I get another 6SF of floor back from the dust collector I'd no longer need. And I'm just finding my interest in using the router table dwindling. But I've went way off topic here...

[Erich Weidner]

Recently in reading an old FWW Magazine there was an article on timber framing. The article suggested only flattening where the joints were going to be.

jtk

Yes, I've been reading some bits about pre-industrial furniture, and even more recently that the faces of boards which weren't visible were only given the minimum treatment (if it is a reference edge, it gets flat, but the smoothing plane and scrapers were skipped. Fatten and done!). I'm actually pretty excited about this concept! (Perhaps I need to get out more...) It does seem like a complete waste of time to 4 square a board and make it beautifully smooth on the inside of a cabinet case for example.

[Andrew Seemann]

I'm not swearing off power tools, but I am trying to get as much usable space out of my shop (which is half of a 2 car garage, and I need to be able to park a car in the other half)as possible. I've never owned a power planer/jointer, and now I'm taking a very hard look at everything in the garage for it to justify any precious wall or floor space it consumes. I want to keep the table saw, or perhaps replace with a smaller TS and/or bandsaw for ripping. But the TS I have now is just too big. The dust collector takes up a lot of room, and at present it is only used with the TS and router table. If I ditch the TS and Router Table, I get another 6SF of floor back from the dust collector I'd no longer need. And I'm just finding my interest in using the router table dwindling. But I've went way off topic here...

It is relevant to the topic in that it is the reason for the topic and puts it in perspective. Swapping the router table for a lunchbox style planer is an option. Edge jointing without a jointer is pretty easy especially with hand planes and/or a table saw. Face jointing can be done well enough to run through a thickness planer with jack planes as well. Thickness planing on the other hand gets old pretty fast, especially as you get old

If I had to do a minimalist power tool set up with most of the work by hand, I would do a bandsaw (my preference is a 14" cast iron Delta style if I had only one bandsaw) and a thickness planer. Those two tools cover the grueling, time consuming part of stock prep the most. That said, I would keep a table saw if at all possible, as they are just so darned handy. Oddly enough, a hybrid or a cabinet style with a 30ish inch fence has about the smallest footprint of a decent saw. I'm assuming you would have the normal complement of powered hand tools for around the house usage like cordless drills, a circular saw, jig/scroll saw, ROS, and maybe a router.

Also, keep in mind if you do stock prep by hand, one of the most important tools in the operation is a decent bench with good options for holding boards.

[James Pallas]

Over the years and because of where I have lived I’ve seen a lot of antique furniture. Most of what I have seen has had some lesser finishes on what would be considered not visible in normal use. My opinion is when machinery came into use and speed was called for the so called not visible areas improved somewhat from jack planed to planer finished. In a factory it was easier and faster to train someone to run a planer on both sides than it would be to have someone with the knowledge to judge the lumber. It also allowed for the use of either side. Even in the early ages of machine work the unseen areas weren’t much to look at. Even today you can be severely judged for your work on interiors if not up to “studio” standards. Of course if your dovetails are absolute perfection all of the cross graining and nailed solid tops, stub tenons and swirling sander decoration is forgiven😉

[Jim Matthews]

Even today you can be severely judged for your work on interiors if not up to “studio” standards. Of course if your dovetails are absolute perfection all of the cross graining and nailed solid tops, stub tenons and swirling sander decoration is forgiven😉

Yep. Couldn't have said this better myself.

Kudos

[Mike Allen1010]

[QUOTE=Warren Mickley;3029120]In general, we cut all pieces to rough size before any planing. An inch longer than needed and 1/4 wider than needed would be typical. These numbers could be smaller if it enabled you to get an additional piece out of the board.

Flattening the face of an eight foot board takes away an inordinate amount of stock. A 1x12x96 board with a flat face may have less than 3/4 left while a flat 1x10x20 board from the same stock may have 15/16 left after flattening.

We first flatten a face side, then make an edge flat and square to the face. The sequence after this depends on specific usage, but for example if we are going to plane the end grain we do this before cutting to width.

Excellent question Erich. +1 to Warren's comments. For what it's worth, my general approach is:

1) Laying out all the rough lumber on any horizontal space available in your shop and using the cutting list and a crayon Mark out all the major components of the project. This is where you look for optimizing grain/figure; is there a particularly pretty piece of face grain that you'd like to feature a show surface? Do you want to "wrap" the grain so that it's continuous around the project? – E.g. left side matches the front, which matches the right side. If you're doing any frame and panel construction, can you find lumber that will accommodate both top and bottom rails or left and right stiles? They can be ripped to create complementary grain pattern that surrounds the panel etc.


2) rough crosscut major components +1 inch, ideally for both length and width. If there pieces that are gonna be glued up to make a panel or tabletop for example, +2 inches (allows for slacking case the glue up is out of square etc.). It is much easier to

3) face plane the show surfaces. 1 inch extra width allows you to rip off any spelching that might occur in planing cross grain to get a flat level surface. Clearly Mark this reference face surface.

4) joint and clearly Mark the reference long grain edge.

5) crosscut and shoot end grain to final length dimension working off reference edge.

6) rip and joint to final width dimension, again working off reference edge.

7) with multiple identical or adjacent components is were planning ahead really pays off. For example, drawer fronts or rails/styles for frame and panel construction, face plane the show surfaces before cutting to final dimensions ensures continuous grain pattern.

FWIW, I rarely plane non-show surfaces. I try and reference all joinery layout from the original reference edge and show surface.

Just my thoughts,YMMV.

Cheers, Mike

[Erich Weidner]

3) face plane the show surfaces. 1 inch extra width allows you to rip off any spelching that might occur in planing cross grain to get a flat level surface. Clearly Mark this reference face surface.

Interesting. I was just about to ask why folks were suggesting initially cutting the parts just a bit wide/long which means you end up crosscutting and possibly ripping twice. That makes sense.

[Warren Mickley]

Interesting. I was just about to ask why folks were suggesting initially cutting the parts just a bit wide/long which means you end up crosscutting and possibly ripping twice. That makes sense.

When cutting to length, we usually knife the board all the way around at both ends, then saw about 1/32 from the line at each end. We then put it in the vise, chamfer the far end to avoid splitting out, and plane to the line. When sawing it is nice to have some extra to saw off for best precision, and that is why we leave extra length at rough cutting. If we don't have plenty of length, we can avoid the sawing and just plane at one or both ends; this usually is more time.

If you rough cut the board 1/4 inch or so wider than finished dimension, then you can plane one edge flat, have some extra to make chamfers for planing the end grain, then plane to final width. If the original rough board is maybe only an inch wider than finished, we usually plane the face and edges for the whole width, then rip to about a 1/16 from the line, (or whatever you are comfortable with), and then plane to a gauge line. In both of these cases we only make one rip cut.

[Jim Koepke]

Interesting. I was just about to ask why folks were suggesting initially cutting the parts just a bit wide/long which means you end up crosscutting and possibly ripping twice. That makes sense.

Of course if one is making mortiise and tenon joints it is common practice to cut the piece with the mortises a bit longer allowing extra support at the end in order to avoid breaking out the ends.

jtk

[James Pallas]

Glad to see this thread. Machine prep and hand prep are very different. Warren’s experience is valuable here as are others. Hand preparing has its ways of avoiding a lot of time consuming processing that is easier to do by machine. When making single pieces, hand working can match or even better machine work as long as the hand tool worker does not try to match machine work processes.

[Michael J Evans]

Not to pull this thread off topic, but since we're talking about preparing stock by hand, what do you neanders consider flat enough across a face? I was preparing some small parts the other day 12"l x 8" wide and was setting my square from corner to corner to check flatness. I wasnt able to get it without some amount of light showing through. If the stock is small I generally hold my stock and square up to a shoplight and look for gaps. Back to my piece, I was able to get mostly flat, but was still able to insert a corner from standard notebook paper in places. Is that considered good enough, or too much? I feel like I want it perfect.
I see a lot of YouTube where the person is showing how to prepare a board and planes away, sets a square across it and claims it is deadflat.

[James Pallas]

Not to pull this thread off topic, but since we're talking about preparing stock by hand, what do you neanders consider flat enough across a face? I was preparing some small parts the other day 12"l x 8" wide and was setting my square from corner to corner to check flatness. I wasnt able to get it without some amount of light showing through. If the stock is small I generally hold my stock and square up to a shoplight and look for gaps. Back to my piece, I was able to get mostly flat, but was still able to insert a corner from standard notebook paper in places. Is that considered good enough, or too much? I feel like I want it perfect.
I see a lot of YouTube where the person is showing how to prepare a board and planes away, sets a square across it and claims it is deadflat.

Michael your probably close. The flatness is directly related to the thickness of the shaving. If the blade of your smoother is cambered than in theory the thinnest shaving you can take full width with no tracks is the depth of the camber. If the camber is .003 for example you are going to see that much light between the tops of the scallops. If you decided to try a straight iron you would leave tracks if you extended the iron enough to cut. If you round just the ends of the iron it will still form a scallop cut. If you took a cut on a board exactly the width of the iron with a straight iron you could , in theory, make it flatter. Hence a straight iron for edge work with a jointer plane.

[David Eisenhauer]

Another thing to consider is where the "flatness" is being considered. If the area is one where joinery work will take place, I try for flat-no light showing-flat/square. If it is across the middle of a panel, a little variance does not bother me.

[Warren Mickley]

Not to pull this thread off topic, but since we're talking about preparing stock by hand, what do you neanders consider flat enough across a face? I was preparing some small parts the other day 12"l x 8" wide and was setting my square from corner to corner to check flatness. I wasnt able to get it without some amount of light showing through. If the stock is small I generally hold my stock and square up to a shoplight and look for gaps. Back to my piece, I was able to get mostly flat, but was still able to insert a corner from standard notebook paper in places. Is that considered good enough, or too much? I feel like I want it perfect.
I see a lot of YouTube where the person is showing how to prepare a board and planes away, sets a square across it and claims it is deadflat.

Most of the U tube people are not very experienced, including a lot that are teaching classes and selling videos.

Yes, you want to be able to flatten a face. The idea is to evaluate the surface and plane only the high spots. If you have a low corner that dips and you keep planing that corner, things will not improve. If the edges are high, you want to plane the edges , not the middle. if the middle is high , don't plane the edges. If the two ends are low, start the plane a few inches in and lift it before you come to the other end. If there is wind, there will be two low corners. Don't plane them!

I use a beech double iron trying plane for this work. You can use a smoothing plane or a jointer etc. if that is what you have.