I have finally begun construction on a real workbench. I am making the base out of large oak and butternut timbers that have been piled in the barn on our neighbor’s property for 40 years. Here is my Dilemma: The timbers obviously are not perfectly straight, so I am looking for creative ideas to straighten and flatten them. I am dealing mostly with 5″x7″ and 8/4×12″ boards ranging in length from 5′-8′. I have a 13″ planer, but only an itty-bitty 4″ rockwell jointer, so jointing a face isn’t an option.
If I can get one face flattened, the planer and bandsaw will take care of the rest. I tried the jointer sled featured in a recent fww issue, but the timbers are so heavy (even after cutting down to rough size) that they bend the sled base, and the 5x7s, combined with the added thickness of the sled, are too tall for the capacity of the planer! I’m thinking I will end up making a carriage for my router, like the one used in the article on refurbishing old workbenches.
Any ideas?
Tony
Replies
Hand plane.
Your other option is to drag them to a shop that has industrial-sized equipment.
Woodhoarder,
I have used winding sticks and a portable power hand planer ,the kind alot of people use to plane down the edge of doors,to get one side reasonably flat.I suppose you could do all four sides if the beems are just to big to handle.
Tim
a portable power hand planer ..
I agree whole heartely!
I have tried the router thing on long/wide plank. Although worked it was a REAL PAIN In the butt! Your guides must be wide enought to hold the router true across the width of the cut.. (on both edges).. AND Level to the entire length to make it flat..
I guess I just got frustrated.. I'm old and well... I give up easy now...
By the way.. I use my many routers for everything and I love them.. EXCEPT for that!
Edit:
I forgot... I found using the hand power planer MUCH better.. By the way.. Just me but I found cutting on a angle went much better.. I just checked every so often with some winding sticks.. It turned out better en' OK!
Edited 5/17/2005 1:37 pm ET by Will George
Lay the boards on a flat surface,then shim the board so it is relatively paralell with thework surface.Screw or nail a straight edge on each side of the timber. Keep the fasteners well below the top .This will act as the sled. Run it thru the planer, take very light cuts until the top face is flat. Remove straight edges,flip over and plane the other side flat.
mike
Hmmmm. Interesting.....
hand planes would make short work of that...
Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
I have had a few people suggest handplaning. Unfortunately, I am of the Microwave-VCR generation, and thus far a self-taught woodworker. If it doesn't involve a machine, It's a mystery to me. I have several of my Grandfather's planes. The largest is about 12 inches long. Problem is, it is very dull, and I don't have the means to sharpen it properly. Can I trust a sharpening service to put a proper edge on it?
Any pointers for a hand plane novice?
Tony
p.s. would a hand plane take a slight twist out of a 4' board?
I have had a few people suggest handplaning. Unfortunately, I am of the Microwave-VCR generation, and thus far a self-taught woodworker.
Steady now young-un... I'm still on the right side o' 40... (barely)
If it doesn't involve a machine, It's a mystery to me.
When I first started out I thought exactly the same; doesn't matter what it is or how little I know, throw a machine at it and it'll turn out juuuuuuuuuuust fine... Ahem.. meanwhile, back in the real world...
I have several of my Grandfather's planes. The largest is about 12 inches long. Problem is, it is very dull, and I don't have the means to sharpen it properly. Can I trust a sharpening service to put a proper edge on it?
Any pointers for a hand plane novice?
Your grandfather's given you a head start... first thing to do would be to identify which type of planes you have; their proper function can be deduced from there... As for sharpening... sure, you can farm this out, but what happens when you need to re-hone your edge?? A more sensible option would be to learn for yourself; trust me, rocket science it ain't... if I can learn, trust me, you can too...
Best place to start would be to get hold of Leonard Lee's book on sharpening; you'll find it listed in Taunton's woodworking books list. Treat it as you would a bible and it'll serve you well throughout any and every sharpening situation you come across...
I say start with the book because there's a bunch of ways to sharpen a blade, and a bunch of stuff to sharpen them with... reading first will give you the in's and out's of each technique, an idea for what kinda gear you need along with a well scribed guide in how to get it done... The book can save you a some hard earned in avoiding hardware that's inappropriate for your situation...
As for learning how to use them.. simple answer is to try it. There's a bit more to it than simply shoving a couple o kilo's of steel over a chunk o wood... but the wood and the tool will both tell you when you're doing something wrong, and conversely when you got it right... Be prepared to make mistakes... be prepared to learn from them... don't be scared to ask questions, especially the seemingly dumb ones... you'll get a bunch of answers and probably spark off an argument or two; education along with entertainment, who could ask for more.. ;)
p.s. would a hand plane take a slight twist out of a 4' board?
with the right set of planes you'll be able to transform just about any piece of wood into something useable, the only limits being the length of your reach and your imagination... Planes have survived in one form or another for well over 2000 years for a reason... they're pretty good at what they do provided you're willing to work up a sweat...
Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
Thanks for all the info everyone. I think for this situation, the straightedges attached to the sides of the boards to hold the piece flat through the planer suggested by Mikek4244 will work best.
I will get my grandfather's planes out and start a new discussion (with their names and numbers) about proper uses for each. Have there been any Sharpening planes for dummies threads recently?
Tony
Sharpening planes for dummies ..
I been doing that fer years!!!
HA. HA. ;-)
Still on the right side of 40, huh?
Which is the right side of it? :>)
Kell - used to think 40 was old until it was astern.....
Garrett Hack's The Hand Plane Book.
Regards,
Ken
"Do as you would be done by." C.S. Lewis
Tony, I have a 12" long bed jointer, and have had a Mikita 1806 B for over 20 years. I am not sure if forced to give up one which it would be. I am thinking about getting the 12" model also.
Here is a link. It is the fifth one down.
http://www.tools-plus.com/power-tools--electric--planers.html
Mikita makes a 6 1/4 wide portable power planer.. borrow one from a timberframer and you've got the start of a solution. How accurite you need to be determines the next step.. When I first started on making timbers for my timberframe I thought things needed to be deadnuts accurite, measured with micrometer precision..
I made a jig that held the Mikita a fixed distance above a steel bed I fabricated.. It made the surface perfect.. Then a few days in the sunlight and wood moves around.. (Honest!) what was once perfect becomes far from perfect and I learned to do it much faster by hand and with a tight string to guide me. keep things square with a framing square and level with thwe string and in a handfull of passes you will be pretty flat and pretty square..
ps there is a German planner that is 12 inches wide but it requires 220 volt.
Makita also makes a 12 1/4" power-plane for $1500. It is shown just under the 6.75" for under $500. In the listing under the link that I posted above.Frenchy, that 12" is what you need for your timber framing project, and when you get through, you can sell it to me for about half of what you paid for it. I have been wanting to add that tool to my collection.
Rootburl,
I'm nearing the final year of the timberframing part of my home.. What I can do on 12 inch wide timbers is use my 6 1/4 in wide plane and double pass it..(I triple pass 18 inch wide timbers) sure there can be a center ridge if you aren't carefull but absolutely nothing that a belt sander can't cure easily..
Besides if I'm worried about getting the timbers perfect I simply set up infeed and outfeed rollars and run the timbers thru my 20 inch wide Grizzly planner.. It's mounted on wheels so I turn it around rather than the timbers.. Those big wide ones are heavy!!!!
timberframing part of my home..
When I die I hope I come back as a Timberframer! Geee I wish!
I bought one of those big Makitas for my frame. Went through four sets of blades on it, and you knew you had worked by the end of the day. 40-something pounds, we quickly found a use for a can of Butcher's paste wax on the sole of that beast (especially when the timbers were wet).
One thing it won't do is guarantee square. There is also little to no finesse with that machine, it's a big wood hog.
No, it's not for sale. :)
Jon,
If you want any hand tool to produce square work you need to take your time with a square to ensure that you get it square.. I found that I can get one side square with a lot of diligence and then the other three sides come much easier..
(or if it's 8 inches or narrower I just run it over my jointer or thru my 20 inch Grizzly planner)..
But really why bother? Timbers, particularly green timbers, wander and warp and twist for years afterwards.. It's part of what gives timberframes their charm..
I carefull squared all my timbers and set them in place with as much prescision as I could. (I evan bought a lazor to ensure everything was true and square).
I had allowed the timbers to dry for at least 4 years before I started hoping that the majority of warping/twisting and etc. was out of them... They all measured in single didgets for moisture content evan in the center of cut offs...
Now my south wall is 3/4 of an inch bowed in.. 3/4 of an inch!!!!! at one point during the first heating season the wall was an 1 1/2" bowed in! Timbers that are sandwiched between two beams of outer black walnut and inner white oak with as many as 10 stainless steel hardened 18/8 that are 10 inches long 1/2 inch diameter lag bolts have pulled away from the inner wall or twisted or both..
I took a great deal of joy when the joints were assembled with such precision. The lap joints in my scissor trusses for example were so tight that they needed to be banged together with a large sledge hammer. there wasn't room for as much as a thin sheet of paper anyplace in that joint..
Now look at them,, By the time I'd gotten to the scissor trusses those timbers had at least 5 years of drying behind them and as I cut the half laps I measured the moisture in them at 7% (that's in the effective center of the beam)
But I know what you mean about wearing out blades.. I own two Mikita planners , it was faster to have both sharp when I started in the morning and use one for a couple of hours untill it was dull then grab the second one and use that untill it too was dull. I'd then stop for lunch and replace both sets of blades. In the afternoon I'd wear out another couple of sets of blades, stop for dinner and replace blades again and go back at it untill the cutoff point (7:00) at which time I'd clean up and shovel shavings out of the way. (a snow shovel worked best!) and replace the blades again.. I bought 20 sets of blades for mine and completely wore out 10 of them. at one point I bought a Tormex sharpener thinking I could save the trip to the sharpener. I quickly found out I that my very best job of sharpening lasted about 1/2 as long as having a pro do it. In addition I seemed to use up more of the blade in sharpening than the pro did..
The next morning I used the groove cutter to cut all the tenions (so much faster and more precise than trying to do it with a skill saw) and use the chain morticer to cut the mortice pockets.. the next evening I'd use a chisel (not a slick because I could be more accurite with the chisel than a slick) to clean up the mortice pockets.. I did that untill dark since it wasn't noisy at all..
As another posted, I've used winding sticks and a power plane to flatten one side of a "really big stick". Another trick, which might work for you - use a router. Set up two rails on either side, dead flat, referenced off of the lowest spot on the board (which should be held firmly in place, of course). Build a sled for the router, start at the high point, gradually lower the router as you move it along and across the board. (Thank you Dave Geer :-( )
I threw my wood in the back of my pickup and took it to a woodshop in town- Had lunch while they ran it through a machine, and drove home with a perfect 3" X 28" X 7' plank- Cost $40- Life is short-
You went to the shop with 5" x 7" timbers, had them run it through a machine and walked out with a 3" x 28" plank? What kind of machine does that? :)
The guy said it was a real expensive one-
I threw my wood in the back of my pickup??
I thought it was BIG?
LOL Threw got to me there!
Well, yeah- But I meant to say "throwed"- My English ain't no better'n my speling-
Gee LOL! I loved it!
I gotta million of 'em-
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled