Replies

1. 
   jgaiennie | Mar 05, 2003 05:44am | #1

   Tom,

   Shouts hand plane to me.  How many boards?  It's pretty easy with a hand plane - like maybe 15 mins if it's one board warped pretty bad.

   jdg

2. 
   rwk47 | Mar 05, 2003 06:57am | #2

   you can do it with your thickness planer if you use shims on the underside to prevent the machine from temporarily pushing it flat.

1. 
   jgaiennie | Mar 05, 2003 06:59am | #3

   Maybe shims in addition to a sled.

   jdg

3. 
   Jamie_Buxton | Mar 05, 2003 07:22am | #4

   There's a scheme with a router that's slow, but works like a champ.    You place the board on a flat table, and build a bridge that crosses the board the short direction.  The bridge supports a router, and allows it to sweep across the board in the short direction.  You make a sweep, move the bridge a little, make another sweep, and continue.   The top face of the board comes out exactly paralleling the table.  If you have a flat table, you get a flat board.   Then you flip the board over and do the back side.   You can build your own bridge, or you can buy one ready-made from outfits like Woodhaven.

4. 
   JoeMetzler | Mar 05, 2003 08:51pm | #5

   The technique is to joint the wide board and then use a plywood "sled" to carry the

   partially flattened board through the planer. Flip the board and plane the partly jointed

   side. The trick is to face joint the one side and remove LESS material than the thickness

   of the "sled" you're going to use.

   For example: Say you've got some 1/4" ply and a rough board 12" wide you need to get

   surfaced on 2 sides (S2S). Face joint the board on the jointer as wide as you can by

   removing the guard and letting the board overhang the edge. (This is just like rabbetting

   on the jointer only using the whole width of the bed instead of only 1/2" or so.) Face

   joint the board until the jointed portion of the face is flat but is only 1/8" deep. (OK, for

   us simple minded folks - you now have a 6" wide 1/8" deep rabbet on a 12" wide board.)

   Next, put the board onto the ply so that the ply fits into the rabbet. Ply (and rabbet) are

   placed face down and into the planer they both go. Because the ply is thicker than the

   solid stock, it doesn't touch the bed. Instead the ply "floats" the irregular board face

   above the bed. This lets the planer "joint" the one face the full width of the board. Also,

   since the ply is flat and the part of the board that rests on the ply is flat, the planer will

   flatten the other face parallel to that surface and not the still rough half of that face.

   Next flip the board and plane the half rough half jointed face until the board is S2S to

   thickness.

5. 
   krumy1 | Mar 06, 2003 03:53am | #6

   You can surface  a 12"  board on an 8" jointer but the guard must be removed to do it. It is well known technique and many will say it's unsafe but what woodworking operation is "safe"?. One of the woodworking magazines illustrated the technique a couple of years ago, popular woodworking I think. Anyway, push blocks must be used and care must be taken.  As far as using your planer to flatten the board that is very easy to do and you don't need an elaborate set up to do it. Here's one way.

   http://www2.fwi.com/%7Ekrumy/warp/warp.htm

   Steve K

6. 
   clampman2 | Mar 06, 2003 07:20am | #7

   Tombenas,

   I believe Joe's method is the best of a bad situation so far mentioned. Joe's (as well as the router technique) will help in removing kinks and twists, which are a far more serious problem than cupping.

   There are two other methods that I use when I don't want to haul wide stock to one of my buddies shops who have 20" jointers. The first is to rip the stock in half, flatten, plane and re-glue. Which you probably dont want to do - though few people would notice the slight grain mismatch.

   The second is to eyeball the flat and take out the kinks and twists with a hand power plane, then plane with that side down, taking light cuts with the planer. Two or three hand planings may be necesssary for a relatively flat job.

   Would be nice to own a 20" Martin wouldn't it?

   Clampman