I’ve managed to stumble across some absolutely beautiful ~250 year old quarter sawn white oak at a great price. The problem is it’s all rough sawn 4/4 and I need 5/4 for some projects I have planned. The boards all pretty close to an inch thick, so I doubt I can have an inch left after surfacing. Maybe 7/8. It’s all from the same tree and I’d love to be able to make it work. Is there any feasible way to slice and dice to make 5/4?
Additional info: it is cheap enough that inefficient methods would be no big deal. I have access to a bandsaw if needed, but ideally I’d be able to get there using only a jointer, planer, and table saw. I need the 5/4 for stringers and possibly arms on arts and crafts spindle furniture. Thanks!
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If you don’t mind having glue lines you could glue 3, 3/4 inch planks making 9/4 together and slice them in the middle to obtain 1 inch + finished like 5/4 .
Resaw the prettiest pcs into show skins at a thickness to get you where you want to be after glueup. Most A&C furniture has some built up parts to get QS on all faces. High class problem to have. Grab it even if it has to wait to be used!
The short answer is no. Not unless you want to cut a bunch of 5/4 strips and laminate them together like butcher block. You could surface them and try to laminate them face to face, but I would be ready for some wonky wood movement introducing that much moisture from the glue into the center of the boards; not to mention the difficulty in clamping such an assembly. I for one would shed many a tear knowing how much of that wood would end up in the dust collector bag. You might be able to do such a thing on an as needed basis; in other words just for the pieces that need to be 5/4 rough cut 2 blanks the same size and laminate them and then surface them. It would solve some of the clamping issues and reduce the amount of want sounds like great wood that ends as wood chips.
I've used the method mentioned by gulfstar on a number of occassions and had decent results. I do like to clamp them to something I know is straight to hold the assembly flat and let the glue dry thoroughly.
If I needed the extra thickness, I would plane some to 7/8" or thicker, then resaw some and plane to 3/16" or 1/4" depending on what final thickness you want. Then glue the two together, NOT using water based glue. I would use West System epoxy, as it is fairly thin, and easy to use in the kind of quantities you would need.
Depending on the design details, you might be able to hide the glue line. I have done that with 1/8" curly maple glued to plain maple, using a "thumbnail" edge detail; basically a partial round-over. Use a large round-over bit, and put a larger ball bearing on it, or a fence to only allow part of the round over. If you arrange that the "edge" this creates is right along the glue joint, it will disappear. Or you can use a quarter-bead profile, with the glue joint in one of the inside corners. Or a chamfer with one corner at the glue line.
The thumbnail profile would work well on the arms. I use it on table tops a lot, as it provides a comfortable edge for users' arms, but has that arris to give more definition than a full round over, which can look a bit muddy in some cases.
The reason not to use water based glue would be to avoid warping from the wood absorbing the water from the glue? Don't really have any issues laminating 1x2s for legs. Is this different? I don't have a ton of experience, so these are genuine questions based on ignorance. I'm not trying to imply that I know better.
Gluing up 2 equal thickness boards with water based glue is safer than when the two are unequal in thickness. In the second case, the glop of water is way off center, and swells up one side of the board, leading to cupping, which can get set in place by the glue eventually drying while the glue-up is cupped. I had this happen when gluing 1/8" curly maple to 7/8" plain maple. By the time we realized what had happened, it was too late to change it. In general, if you wet one side of a board and not the other, it will cup. Or, if you leave a very black ebony panel flat on the workbench in the sun, the up side will dry out more, and the panel will cup (until you put it on strips in a different part of the shop so the moisture in the two sides can even out.) Guess how I know that!
I suggested using these unequal thicknesses both to conserve wood, and to move the glue line near one edge, where it is easier to hide. Unless you do some fluting, a glue line in the middle will be pretty visible.
Not to worry about asking questions; that is how we learn. Better to learn from others' mistakes than making them again. Saves a lot of time and wood.
Thank you for the clear explanation! For my plans, glue lines should be very hard to notice in the stringers, so I think gulfstar's suggestion would work great. For the arms, I'll see if I can precisely resaw a 3/16" or so and epoxy to a 7/8ish or so board. Something it would be good to figure out too because then I could live the dream of legs quarter sawn on all faces with that method.
This Stumpy Nubs video shows one solution (jump to 2:35):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esCOczzAbDM
Why do you NEED 5/4? What finished thickness are you looking for, and for what purpose? Most people finish 5/4 down to an inch, or not much over. 7/8 is pretty close.
Was wondering this myself. Strikes me as potentially far simpler and less wasteful to just tweak the plans a little, and likely what I’d do, unless it would result in the finished piece being significantly weaker or looking emaciated.
A very good point. If I can mill it thick enough that will be no problem. I have some furniture that is mostly 1" actual thickness and some that is mostly 3/4" and when next to each other, the difference is clear. I'd like to match the beefier pieces as closely as possible. I guess we will see how it turns out after milling.
A less important side note: if you want your spindle spacing to match the width of your spindle and for the spindle to be square, the difference between a 3/4" spindle on a 1" stretcher and a 1/2" spindle on a 3/4" stretcher adds up to 50% more spindles! That really adds up.
For many things, such as shelves, drawer dividers, some tops, etc, 3/4 is just too thin to my eye. Usually I end up around 7/8 or just shy of that. Those small things make a difference to me. When I pick through stock at the lumberyard I can sometimes get 4/4 that will finish thick enough. The rest of the time I start with 5/4.
You can get one of these. I think a re-thickening option is available.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgS6-O2APWY&t=379s
Wow. I hope they come out with a 3D embiggener. I can shoot my 4/4 up to 120/4 and carve a chair out of one solid chunk.
IMO what _MJ_ said is the way to go. If you do miters for the legs, you'll get ray fleck on all 4 sides.
The other method I have used is to simply use 1/4" or 1/8 sawn veneer & do butt joints over a core, then chamfer either 1/8 or 1/4 and the glue line disappears.
Good tip on the chamfer. I usually just walk the face veneers around so there is only 1 glue line on each face.
I'll be blunt, If the wood is too thin, either change the plans to accommodate the thinner stock or get wood that fits the existing plan. While laminating is an option, it may not be the correct way to go for your project.
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