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Thread: Questions from a Neander about Flattening Boards

  1. #1
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    Questions from a Neander about Flattening Boards

    Hi guys.

    I am a total Neanderthal. I don't use a single power tool in my current shop. My experience with powertools is limited mostly to occasional use in other people's shops, and to small portable tools like jigsaws and the like.

    This means that I'm more ignorant than I care to admit about modern methods.

    Sometimes, I wonder how very basic operations are done in a modern way, and what the standard practices are for power tool based methods.

    For instance, I noticed that when I get boards planed, even straight from the mill, they often come slightly twisted, or bowed, etc.
    It seems that your average planer doesn't produce a perfectly flat and twist free board. Now, I am aware that wood will twist and warp even after being planed, even by hand, but this isn't what I mean. I mean, I've just never received a board that I would call truly flat, even when I just had it run through a planer for me. It's always close, but not entirely flat. I always flatten it the rest of the way by hand with a couple of hand planes.

    How do you correct this with power tools? Do you just use a better planer of some type? Do you use some other tools? Or do you not even bother with correcting minor twist or bowing it for most work?

    I don't need to know this practically speaking because I don't even have room for a single planer or table saw in my shop, but I'd like to be a little less ignorant at least!

  2. #2
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    It's basically the same. The planer just makes both faces parallel. With power tools you would use a jointer, which has two long, flat, beds with a cutting head in the middle. Like a giant try plane upside down. With power tools it is far more important that stock be surfaced true and square on all four sides, unlike with hand tools.
    ~mike

    happy in my mud hut

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by mike stenson View Post
    It's basically the same. The planer just makes both faces parallel. With power tools you would use a jointer, which has two long, flat, beds with a cutting head in the middle. Like a giant try plane upside down. With power tools it is far more important that stock be surfaced true and square on all four sides, unlike with hand tools.

    Ah, I see! For some reason I thought the jointer was just for edges.

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by Luke Dupont View Post
    Ah, I see! For some reason I thought the jointer was just for edges.
    I can see that, the name would imply that. This is why such wide jointers are popular though.
    ~mike

    happy in my mud hut

  5. #5
    There is also a difference between "perfectly flat and twist-free" and "flat and twist free enough for what I need the board to do." Boards do frequently move after planing due to uneven moisture content in the wood. You can true them up perfectly after that, but they will just move again when the humidity changes. Best is to use the wood as quickly as possible after milling, to get the board locked in the structure, before it has a chance to move much. Plus not every board needs to be (or can be) perfect. It just needs to work well enough for its intended application.

    If you live in a place with wild and rapid changes in humidity like I do, you just assume there will be a lot of movement and account for it in your design as best you can. You select the straightest and most stable boards for where you need that the most, and use the less than ideal ones in smaller dimensions and where stability is less critical, or where the board is captured in the structure, like a floating panel.

    If you have a limited amount of wood for a specific project, like 20 board feet of wood from someone's tree you are making into a desk for them, you need to be quite deliberate and planfull about what goes where.

  6. #6
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    I had a 6" jointer but found that a board in bad shape, I could easily remove a huge amount of wood attempting to get a flat face. If I take a hand plane I can work the board into much better shape by focusing high spots and twist. I started getting competent at this and with a 6" limit to stock I can run through it, I decided to sell it. I like the new found space. With a planner if you can't start with one side mostly flat you will just keep following the out of flat zones. I have never gotten the making of a planner sled thing. I can work one face flat on my bench and do the same with the other or take it through the planner. I do admit that it is convenient to take multiple pieces through the planner to get them all to a uniform thickness.

  7. #7
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    You can still feed a twisted board through a planer. That is why people make jigs like a planer sled which stabilizes a twisted board as it goes through. Once they get a true face with the sled they then use that surface as a reference face for the other side.

  8. #8
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    Wasn't this in general yesterday? Wow.
    ~mike

    happy in my mud hut

  9. #9
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    Yes, it was. Not sure why it got moved. I guess someone just briefly read the title and thought I was asking about hand-tool methods, lol.
    Last edited by Luke Dupont; 01-08-2022 at 7:24 AM.

  10. #10
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    My modest 6" Jet jointer gets me almost there, using winding sticks and pencil marks for the final cuts. I NEVER take even close to 1/16" off a board at the jointer, more like 1/64 to start and just kiss it with 1/128 near the end. (Hobbyist: all the time in the world.)

    So I sneak up on it, and then run the parts through the planer for uniform thickness.

    Then I put the boards aside overnight or longer. I'm lucky to live in Northern California where the humidity behaves well nearly year-round. I also heat and air-condition my garage when I'm working.

    I then come back to them with the sticks and my #607 or #5-1/2 to shave off any last bits if needed, usually from two opposite corners. So I don't expect the jointer, or the planer for that matter, to finish the milling job. But even with my painstaking sliver-at-a-time process, the machines are a big time saver for me.

    Of course, until your jointer is set up, you can expect a life of heartbreak. The good folks at the Creek helped me do that a few years ago and I've never had to look back.

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