a)b lets say the symbol to the right represents a cupped board. Now imagine that it is lying on your workbench with the “a” side facing the floor and the “b side facing up. What are the steps to getting this board flat with a handplane? Do you start by flattening the “b” side first? If so, should i start planing across the grain. I do have a sharp Lie Nielsen #4 plane and a 13 inch planer at my disposal. The board is black walnut, 12 inches wide, 7/8 inches thick. The cup is not as bad as my example. are winding sticks important or will a straight edge work ok. Please let me know how you people do it.
kenney66
Replies
lets see now....
your orientation is fine i.e cup-side up, hollow facing down, scrub across the grain until the cupped side is reasonably flat, check it regularly with both winding sticks and straight edges as you go (it could be twisted too). Flip it over and repeat on the other side.
One word of caution... warped boards tend to have a ton of internal stress just waiting to be set free. Don't try to plane one face all the way to perfection before working on the other, but rather, try to equalise the stock you're removing from each face at roughly the same time to keep the stresses in balance. Don't be at all surprized to find that the board moves some more as you work it.
Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
"One word of caution... warped boards tend to have a ton of internal stress just waiting to be set free. Don't try to plane one face all the way to perfection before working on the other, but rather, try to equalise the stock you're removing from each face at roughly the same time to keep the stresses in balance. Don't be at all surprized to find that the board moves some more as you work it.I don't believe this is correct, tho this is true of metal. I sometimes accuse woodworkers of thinking too much like machinists. This post is a good example (tho I have reason to believe the poster is a fine woodworker). Wood is not metal and cannot be machined as if it were. Wood is non-isotropic (mechanical porperties differ in different directions) unlike metal and it will not hold the aerospace tolerances woodworkers desire from their expensive milling machines. That's what plywood and mdf are for..well, er, vice versa- your woodworking machines were actually developed not for wood as their name implies but isotropic composites like plywood and mdf.Planing this board is not the answer. You can plane it flat today and it will be 1/2" thick when you're done. Come back in a week and it will be cupped more than it is now. For centuries people have been developing ways of restraining boards like this one with dovetails and other joints. If your joinery doesn't allow for that, you've just learned a good lesson about selecting stock!Not to be undone by my own rhetoric: A little flattening, just to take off the high spots long enough to effect your joinery isn't out of the question. I try to plane and join in the same day for this reason. I use a 16" jack plane, (you could use a cheap #6 which is the same length) and just work diagonally like you were thinking. Plane marks left by the jack's rounded blade are removed on the outside of the piece with a smooth plane. A long plane is needed to straighten the edges. That's three planes.Adam
Midnight...I'm tending to agree with Adam, that maybe you should also look into how you select lumber in the first place. If it's in the neighborhood of 1" thick when it comes out of the kiln or off the air-dry rick, or off the rack at the board store, and is cupped badly, save that piece for when you need narrow stock that will be ripped off the cupped board, minimizing the variation. Or rip it now and then edge glue the pieces back together and run the whole glue-up through the planer.
I just selected a piece of cherry from a pile of kiln dried 15/16" 7' long random width stock...it was amazing how much variation in both cupping and warping existed. After eye-balling 6 or eight boards, I found one that was nearly straight all ways. Since the board will be ripped into some pretty thin picture frames, I need to minimize the amount of internal stress present in the first place. I figuring (hoping) that the lack of any signifigant warping in any direction will translate in to picture frames that will stay straigth.
Now, if your talking 6/4 - 8/4 stuff, then plane away.
johnny d, i think you are right about picking better stock. what do recommend to bring with you when selecting stock, 12 inch straight edge? tape? what is your process?
Just your eyeball. Lift each board off the pile, one end down, one end up next to your face, and site down the edges. Somewhat difficult if you wear thick glasses with lots of correction...thick lenses tend to distort. Also look for boards with the finest, closest grain. You sometimes can get away with a board that has a big knot or set of knots on one edge or end, because you know you're going to only rip off the good part. With some species that have pronounced differences between the outside sap wood and inside heartwood, a giveaway is a piece that has BOTH sap and heart. It came off the edge of the log, and if the tree had grown with a curve in it, you'll see the curve reflected in the line between the sap and heart. You should avoid these boards unless you WANT the contrast in the finished piece...then you'll have to deal with it.
If you can, go to a sawmill and spend an hour or so watching the sawyer make boards out of logs. That will give you a feel. Also, go down to Home Depot (nice warm place to spend some time looking at boards on a week day morning (no one else around) where there's a nice big stack of #2 pine 1X4 - 1X12. Eyeball a whole bunch of boards...you'll pick up on which ones are straight and which ones are crooked right away. Buy a few. Take them home and work them into a project.
I could do this all day long.
Then you'll see what I mean.
I sometimes accuse woodworkers of thinking too much like machinists.
<chucklin...> I dearly wish I could claim such skill as a string to my bow... alas, I'm little more than a simple wood basher.. my post was based on trial, error and some sage advise from this forum...
That said.. you're right enough.. just because it's flat today doesn't mean it'll remain so... Queer stuff wood... I guess that's why I enjoy working it so much; no two boards behave exactly the same. Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
Hi 'Unknown'... If that piece of wood was in my shop, I'd start with the 'B' side. Yes, winding sticks would be used to get the face as close to 'flat' as possible. You do not state the length of the board. If it is relatively short, you can use a decent streight edge to check for levil down the length of the board. Next, plane one edge square to the planed face. Normally, the end would now be squared to the face AND edge, but I'll assume you're going to use a table saw for cutting to length, so I'll omit it at this time. With the 'good' side down, run the board through the planer to get both faces parallel and then run the second edge through the table saw to get the second edge parallel to the first (planed) edge. Depending on the amount of cupping, I may start with a scrub plane with a SLIGHTLY radiused blade just to get rid of most of the main curvature and then go to my longer planes to finish the job. SawdustSteve
Also, pay attention to the grain direction. If the rings are ~ parallel to the warp, removing the convex side of the board, as Mike said, may cause the warp to change drastically. If they run counter to the warp, it'll change in a different way.
Do you have a scrap piece to test with?
Have you noticed any movement in the board with changes in humidity?
Kenny66,
Before you start think a bit. What is the minimun thickness that you can live with as a finished flat board for your project? What is the minimun length you can live with as a finished flat board. Realize, in your example, the shorter the board, the thicker it can be when flat. Make sure your not just working up a sweat to end up with a board that is unusable.
the board i have is 5 feet in length and i am going to cut it into roughly four 12 inch boards. Would it be better to flatten each piece individually or as one solid board? After i plane across the grain to get the cupped side flat, what is the next step? run it through the planer to get it smooth and to final thickness or just simply use the handplane and plane with the grain? Are there supposed to be plane marks left behind? If not how do i avoid this or minimize this. Is rounding the edge of the plane blades recommended?
by the way, i have come to realize that working with hand planes is quite fun. Once i got started i realized that the process is not necessarily physically hard. I just need to do it. I admire those of you who know to use your handtools to their best and greatest use. It seems the more I learn the more I realize I do not know.
Kenney66, here in sunny Chicagoland
Kenny,
You mentioned that you have a 13" planer, so maybe you are considering using it. Here's another way in case you get tired of hand planing: measure the amount of cup you have in the A side (from the bottom of the valley to the tops of the edges). Your description seems to indicate it's pretty moderate, so say for example it is 1/4"; rip a narrow spacer 1/4" thick out of scrap wood, the length of the board, and hot glue it in place along the bottom of the valley. This allows you to run it thru the planer, A side down (and keeps the planer rollers from compressing the cup out of the board, which would result in a still cupped but thinner board). When you get a good wide spot on A side, remove the spacer and run the B side through.
In agreemant with Midnight, you might consider planing off a slight amount at a time, and waiting to see if internal stress does something unexpected before you continue. Gary
Kenney
Hand planing is great for your fitness, your mental health, and the development of your hand skills, but if you just want speed and some nice flat boards, I'd do the whole job with your 13 inch planer!
I know its not what the 'experts' recommend, but I frequently feed cupped boards straight into my thicknesser, taking light cuts and swapping sides after each pass, and I can produce perfectly flat boards after just half a dozen passes in favourable conditions.
Same over the top (I have an under and over).
Better for you to do it by hand, but not essential.
Malcolm
Edited 3/3/2006 4:50 am ET by Malcolm
Since you are wanting 4 boards out of a 5' piece, I'd cut the board in half, to make things easier( 5' is at the upper limit of what is easy to plane by hand. To flatten a board, you need to remove the cupping and any bowing. I like to plane the convex side first, because the board is usually more stable on the bench with the concave side down. After getting rid of the bowing and cupping, the board in all likelihood won't be flat, so you'll have to use winding sticks. Plane off the high corners, checking with the winding sticks and the straight edge to ensure you are maintaining a true surface. You don't have to get a perfect surface, just one that won't rock as it is pushed through the planer. I have an extra long bed on my planer to help in reducing snipe and to make it a little more accurate for truing up the lumber. The first couple of cuts should be light ones. Plane until the planer takes a complete cut over the whole surface, and then flip it doing the other side. If you have a significant amount to remove, you should take more or less equal amounts off each side, to keep the moisture content in balance.
Rob Millard
Kenney,
Because I'm being lazy (and don't want to forget anything), this is copied from another thread (my text).
Hand planing (rough) lumber to dimension is not hard:
Ideally, you need 5 planes: a scrub plane, a #5, a #7 or #8, a #4 or #4-1/2, and a low angle block plane, but you can get away with a #5 and a low angle block plane -- it's just a little harder.
You'll also need a good straight edge, an accurate try or combination square, a marking/panel gauge, and a pair of winding sticks (you can make these yourself). A card scraper is also handy.
Select a board face for the reference face. Use a pair of winding sticks and a straight edge to determine the high and low spots. Mark the high spots and use the scrub plane to reduce them to the approximate level of the rest of the board. Check for twist with the winding sticks. Correct with the scrub, as necessary. By this time, you should have a roughly flat (length and width) board with no twist and with a lot of troughs in it. Use the #5 to remove the troughs from the scrub plane. (Planing diagonally or straight across the grain in both directions with the scrub plane and the #5 to remove the scrub troughs will significantly reduce tearout in most woods. Then follow up with the #5 by planing with the grain.) Once the troughs are mostly gone, use the #7 or #8 with the grain to plane the face flat. Once you get full length and full width shavings, you board is very, very close to FLAT. Check with the straight edge and winding sticks. Correct as necessary. Finish up with the smoothing plane (#4 or # 4-1/2). Use the scraper on gnarly grain that gives your smoother a hard time, but be careful not to scrape a dip into the wood. Part 1 of 6, complete.
Mark this face as your reference face. All other measurements of square, etc, will come from this face.
Select one long edge, and use the #5 to roughly flatten/smooth it, and then use the #7/#8 to make it straight and square to the reference face. Mark this edge as your reference edge. Part 2 of 6, complete.
Use the reference edge and the try/combination square to mark one of the short edges square. You can use the #5 to plane to rough plane it flat and square to both the reference face and edge -- if the short edge is 4 to 6 or more inches wide; if not, then start with the LA block plane. (Chamfering the edges down to your cutting line will reduce tear out on the corner edges; alternative methods are to clamp a sacrificial piece of wood to the edge and let it tear out instead of your board, or to plane in from each outside edge.) Use the LA block plane to clean it up. Mark the other short edge to the desired length (saw it to rough length, if necessary) and do the same thing to the other short edge. Parts 3 and 4 of 6, complete.
Use your combination square or a marking/panel gauge to mark the other (unplaned) long edge to the desired finished width. As you did for the reference long edge, use the #5 to roughly smooth it down almost to the cutting line, and then use the #7/#8 to make it straight and square to the reference face. Check for straight and square to the reference face and to the 2 short edges. All 4 edges should now be square to the reference face and square to each other. Part 5 of 6, complete.
Use your marking gauge, basing off the reference face, to mark the thickness of your board around all 4 edges. Flip the board over to the unplaned face and use the scrub plane to plane down almost to the marked reference lines (The bottoms of the troughs should be about 1/16 inch above the cutting line). Use the #5, and the #7 or #8, as before on the reference face to make this face flat and square. Finish up with the smooth plane and, as necessary, the scraper.
At this time, you should have a board with 2 flat, smooth, and parallel faces, 4 flat and square edges (long edges parallel to each other, as well as short edges parallel to each other, and all 4 edges square to the two faces), and of the required thickness, length, and width, ready for whatever needs to be done next.
The first board you do by hand will take what seems like an inordinately long time, but with just a little bit of practice, it becomes nearly as fast as -- and often faster than -- putting a board through a jointer, thickness planer, and sanding sequence.
A couple of things to keep in mind:
Keep your plane irons SHARP!!
If you have only a couple of planes, open the mouth up for the initial rougher planing, and close the mouth for the finer, finish planing.
Let the plane do the work -- don't force it.
Skewing the plane often helps reduce tear out and makes planing easier.
Expect to get a good upper body work out!
This is not the only sequence that it can be done in, but it works quite well.
Good luck, and have fun! There's nothing quite like the sense of accomplishment you get when you have taken a piece of rough lumber and turned it into a nicely finished, dimensioned, board using only hand-powered tools.
James
Edited 3/3/2006 11:34 pm by pzgren
james, thanks for the knowledge,
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