Milling Rough Lumber

[Mike Goetzke]

I really don't have a lot of experience milling rough lumber. I usually use 2-side finished stock from Rockler. There was a lumber run not far from my house so I picked up a little over 100bf of rough red oak. I'm working on my second project from this lumber - an enclosed end table.

I have a 6" jointer and 13" surface planer.

I enjoy being in the shop but it took me about four hours to select-mark-face join(one side)-edge join(one side)-thickness plane about 30 bf. That's probably at least twice the time it takes me to mill the Rockler stock.

I seemed to spend a lot of time facing one side on the jointer since I have a 6" jointer and many boards were 7-10" wide and I had to pass them through twice per cut (no wonder some buy 8" & 15" jointers). Maybe I wasn't aggressive enough on the surface planer (I was taking around 1/16" off per pass for the first few passes).


Is this a typical time for 30bf of red oak? Or am I slow?

(This really isn't a complaint about time to mill the lumber just wondering if I can speed up the process or if it's worth the extra $ to buy the finished 2-side - even though I enjoy milling.)


Mike

[Frank Fusco]

Sounds like you need a planer. If your work isn't too wide, you'll probably be well served by the Grizzly G0505. Not much over $200.00. Some might put it down as a 'lunch box'. But mine will work like a hoss for hours. Can't ask more than that of a tool.

[Mike Goetzke]

Sounds like you need a planer.

See edited post - I used a jointer and surface planer.

[Lars Thomas]

Mike, 4 hours does seem like a long time. But when you factor in that it essentially took you twice as long on the jointer, I suppose that's not bad. For the planer, it's great if you can 'select' a volunteer. I have one of my boys catching the wood coming out of the planner and that really helps.

If you are looking for a lumber supplier (aside from Rockler), you might want to try Owl Hardwood either in Lombard or Des Plains. I think you will find the prices and selection to be better; although not as good as the Lumber run prices. Lars

[Al Willits]

Just got a jointer/planer combo and new to this too, but when you run the rough stuff though, does it sound like your working the planer much?
Wondering if you couldn't increase the cut a bit ??

Al

[Todd Woodward]

Why not cut the boards to 6 inches wide or less and glue them up? That whole process of jointing and planing should have taken less than an hour for 30 bdft total. It's not fast, but you'll get the results you want instead of the results that they guy planing for Rockler wants in your wood!!

[Jesse Cloud]

Good advice above. I would be aggressive to start with on the planer and then tune down to take thin slices as I approach the target thickness. Another thing you can do if you have a bandsaw is to cut the rough lumber close to your target thickness, so you don't have so much to do on the planer. Same principle for edge jointing. Snap a chalk line on the rough piece, band saw down the line, and then joint the band saw cut smooth.

[John Piwaron]

I think that's too long.

I think it might have gone faster to rip them into widths more easy handled on the jointer then put through the planer. However, this speed would come at the expense of keeping track of board order then gluing the proper boards back together since you seem to need them wide.

But this brings up another point - the panels you're making would have greater stability if they were made up of narrower pieces. An alternating grain situation.

I've got a 25 (or so) inch wide solid red oak top on a coffee table that's now about 6 or 7 years old and is as flat as the day I finished the glue up. I glued up 4 boards with alternating grain. It's held to the frame underneath with wooden L brackets. I could have used metal Z clips, but chose to go the hard way.

In the end though, for me at least, this is a hobby and speed is not that important. If it were my job I couldn't say that. I think you should do it however you like. Get a copy of Hoadley's "Understanding Wood"

[Ian Gillis]

I confess that I've never tried to joint boards wider than my jointer, but I do have some thoughts on face jointing in general.

It pays to treat each board as an individual and not just blindly run each one over the jointer until you're taking shavings over the full length. In addition to figuring out grain direction, which is a basic necessity, try just spot planing certain areas with your jointer.

If you have a piece that's bowed along its length (and if you can't cut it shorter for some reason), try just planing the 'hump' on the convex side. This will remove some wood that is under compression and will often make the board straighter. By making several short passes on a convex face in this way you can often reduce the total amount of material you have to remove and the amount of time spent doing it.

Likewise, you can spot plane only the ends of the concave side, or the high side of a twisted face to quickly get closer to the flatness that you're looking for.

I don't know how clearly this comes across, but time spent assessing each board and spot planing on the jointer is time well spent. It's an extension of what you would probably do if you were hand planing. Your motorised jointer, despite its length and its whirring blades is a stationary plane and it pays to use it creatively.

If you're squeamish about spot planing on the jointer - it generally requires holding the blade guard open somehow - think about going at the highest spots on the board with a handplane before bringing the pieces to the jointer.

Cheers

[Don Baer]

Joined , planed and cross cut 40 db feet of white oak on saturday and it took about 3 hours for that work so I'd say you were just a little behind the curve. Be more agressive with the planer. Oh and I did'nt have a joiner so I used my TS with a glue line blade for edge planeing.

[Mike Goetzke]

Thanks for the info.

Most of my boards are going to be ripped down. So, probably could have saved quite a bit of time ripping to 6" max. and using my son as a helper at the surface planer.

- Should have mentioned in the original post that the time was split between two days and most of the boards were 1-1/8" to 1-1/4" thick to start with.


Mike

[Jake Helmboldt]

cutting to rough dimension also saves wood (and work), particularly with stock that is not straight. And is easier to handle.

JH

[CPeter James]

I use only rough lumber, red oak and pine. I find that unless I have a specific project, i break everything down to under 6" wide and 4' long. It works for me. I have a DJ20 8" jointer and a Jet 15" planer. With the shorter, narrower pieces, I can get flatter, better boards, quicker. I work for one good face most of the time and plane to that surface. I plane to 13/16- 7/8" and then do my glue ups for panels. I can then surface the panel either in my planer of my 25" drum sander.

CPeter

[Lars Thomas]

...most of the boards were 1-1/8" to 1-1/4" thick to start with.


Mike

Some sawyers think they are doing you a favor offering 4/4 stock measuring out at 5/4. The reality is, it just takes more time to prepare.

[Mike Cutler]

Mike.

Working alone, in a small shop, that's not too bad. You'll get faster as you do more of it. You might want to think about the addition of a larger sized bandsaw to resaw some of the excess, prior to planing if you think that you will be doing this alot in the future. It will cut down on the passes through the planer