Making rough cut cedar from smooth cedar
sleepydad
| Posted in Wood and Materials on
Working on a fence. It’s western red cedar; re-sawed out of old utility poles.
I’m almost finished but I ran short on material. I need to buy just a couple of boards from home-depo to finish it. However the rough cut cedar from depo is only rough on one side.
SO…. How to I Make rough cut cedar from smooth cedar?
I know it’s a strange question. Just wondering if anybody has done something like this? Wire brush or wire wheel on a drill or what?
Any help out there?
Replies
You might get the effect by using a real coarse sandpaper across the grain or diagonally. Most of us make smooth lumber from rough, never tried going the other way :-) Since it's a fence, is there an inconspicuous place you can install the 'new' boards smooth side out?
I have never really tried to go backwards as well. I've spent a good portion of my life making rough smooth; never the other way around.
yes they will be smooth side out but it is a gate. every time I walk out that gate I'll see the unmatched side. I'm such a freak about stuff like that. It will bother me. I just figured it if somebody had a simple way?
I'll start experimenting?
Ray,That's easy - throw your planer into reverse and feed the smooth board through. Make sure to set your dust collector to "blow" as well.(Kidding, of course!)Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com
and now http://www.flairwoodworks.com) - Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Edited 6/8/2009 9:31 am by flairwoodworks
If you go to a DIY store, you might find they have fascia that is planed (smooth) on one side, and rough on the other. The lumber mills supply S4S to a remanufacturer. The reman plant will run the S4S through a resaw, with the blade set just on the edge of the stock. This produces a rough side, and a very impressive amount of dust on the floor (there is no way to capture the dust, since it is not boxed in by the lumber on both sides of the blade)
You should be able to do this easily enough on you bandsaw - fewer teeth is better, maybe your oldest dullest blade?
Good luck
thanks I will try it.
Buy two boards, plane the smooth side down to half the required thickness, then glue them together.
The saws used to do the initial rough cutting have thick blades with very large teeth (1 or 2 TPI). I don't think you're going to get a good match with a shop-sized bandsaw.
-Steve
Run the material alongside the bandsaw blade.
David Ring
http://www.touchwood.co.il/?lang=e&id=1
ring said run it against a bandsaw blade, and I'd echo his comment, except to add that do it backwards....
matched some siding on one of our canuck brazilianaires using this method.
Eric
wire brush on an angle grinder.
" I don't think you're going to get a good match with a shop-sized bandsaw."
Depends on what "good enough" means. I've always been taught to build a fence good side out - friendly neighbor approach, though required by code in many areas. In this case, that might mean "good enough side out". Plus - if you are going to let the cedar weather (versus a lifetime of cleaning and refinishing) then after a couple seasons, the good enough side will be a close match.
No disrespect to your project or to any other commentators, but - after all - this is a fence. A very well-built beautiful fence, from the photo, but still just a fence. Take the easiest option and tee it up.
I had to match some 8' rough cut cedar and as the last post suggested - I ran it backwards through a bandsaw. I built a small jig that ran it through at about a 15 degree angle - set the distance so that the tip of the blade just touches the wood (the blade will flex slightly as the wood goes through). I tried a 3/8" fine cut and a 1" resaw blade - both gave good results. Don't hesitate when feeding the wood or you end up with banding.
Provided all you need is 1X4s or so, pull an old steel (as opposed to carbide) saw blade out of the pile, and give every other tooth a whack with a hammer to increase the set a bit. Run the boards through the TS on edge so the blade just skims the smooth face and roughs it up a bit.
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA
Everything fits, until you put glue on it.
Sleepy, whereabouts are you located? Roughcut cedar would be fairly easy to find in some northwest locations.
I'm in Minnesota so western red cedar is not all that common here. All of the WRC in the fence came from resawing utility poles. WRC is astronomically priced here. 7/8" x 8" x 8' long rough is $15-$18 each.
I can get as much of it as I want from a sawer I know. it just takes several weeks until I can get it and it's priced about 1/2 what I quoted above. he will also cut real dimensional stuff.
so I just opted to leave the surfaced side out on the fence. I didn't want 2 but well I guess you can't have everything. Now I can get back to making furniture. Not that I didn't enjoy building the fence but I would rather work with hardwood.
"7/8" x 8" x 8' long rough is $15-$18 each." Ouch!
"Now I can get back to making furniture. Not that I didn't enjoy building the fence but I would rather work with hardwood." Amen!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Whatever you do to those boards, do a little to the whole side of the gate, partly for similar texture and partly to expose new wood on the slightly older, darker stuff so it will all look like it was worked at the same time. I know your not dealing with very old lumber, but even a period of weeks of air exposure will change the shade of the wood.
Brian
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