Best way to level rough cut wood..??
- Thread starter sdalby
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MikeG.
Established Member
Welcome.
Firstly, lucky you if you've got a plentiful supply of cheap or free wood! Secondly, be aware that branch wood is going to be full of stresses and most of it is going to be unsuitable for any situation where one piece of wood joins to another. Thirdly, if this wood is newly cut, then it is "green", and will shrink and crack as it dries. A lot. Often rendering it unusable.
If you get past all those issues and have anything usable left, then there are all sorts of ways of flattening wood, from an adze or a hatchet at one end of the scale, to a planer thicknesser at the other. In between lies hand planes...but they're only any use if you've got a solid worksurface and a means of restraining the wood from moving as you work. Unfortunately, "easiest" and "cheapest" are in a strong inverse relationship with this subject. The cheapest way is going to involve more sweat than the easiest way, but be a matter of a few pounds of investment rather than possibly thousands.
Firstly, lucky you if you've got a plentiful supply of cheap or free wood! Secondly, be aware that branch wood is going to be full of stresses and most of it is going to be unsuitable for any situation where one piece of wood joins to another. Thirdly, if this wood is newly cut, then it is "green", and will shrink and crack as it dries. A lot. Often rendering it unusable.
If you get past all those issues and have anything usable left, then there are all sorts of ways of flattening wood, from an adze or a hatchet at one end of the scale, to a planer thicknesser at the other. In between lies hand planes...but they're only any use if you've got a solid worksurface and a means of restraining the wood from moving as you work. Unfortunately, "easiest" and "cheapest" are in a strong inverse relationship with this subject. The cheapest way is going to involve more sweat than the easiest way, but be a matter of a few pounds of investment rather than possibly thousands.
Ttrees
Iroko loco!
Hello
Unless you've got box wood, I don't believe there's many species, if any at all that
won't be guaranteed to split to pieces, whilst "in the round".
Have you any of the trunk left that you could split to make boards from.
You would need to seal them quickly with wax or PVA or old paint and wait a long time,
A year per inch, plus a summer should be somewhere close.
And depending on the species..
Prepare for the split timber "checking" cracking from the ends, or splitting in two depending how you split or "rive" it.
Might be an idea to just find some dry stuff to work on.
And the cheapest and best tool you want for the job is a hand plane.
You might want a pair of them.
Get yourself a Stanley Bailey design on the bay, look for stanley or record.
Familiarse yourself with a working hand plane, (not missing or damaged parts)
Look out for hairline cracks around the cheeks of the plane or chips from the mouth, (cast iron is not that tough, will crack if dropped)
and a fullish length iron. (blade)
Cheap diamond hones like DMD on the bay are about 3 quid a piece.
Tom
Unless you've got box wood, I don't believe there's many species, if any at all that
won't be guaranteed to split to pieces, whilst "in the round".
Have you any of the trunk left that you could split to make boards from.
You would need to seal them quickly with wax or PVA or old paint and wait a long time,
A year per inch, plus a summer should be somewhere close.
And depending on the species..
Prepare for the split timber "checking" cracking from the ends, or splitting in two depending how you split or "rive" it.
Might be an idea to just find some dry stuff to work on.
And the cheapest and best tool you want for the job is a hand plane.
You might want a pair of them.
Get yourself a Stanley Bailey design on the bay, look for stanley or record.
Familiarse yourself with a working hand plane, (not missing or damaged parts)
Look out for hairline cracks around the cheeks of the plane or chips from the mouth, (cast iron is not that tough, will crack if dropped)
and a fullish length iron. (blade)
Cheap diamond hones like DMD on the bay are about 3 quid a piece.
Tom
Lazurus
Established Member
Router and sled?
Firstly, yes I have pretty much an unlimited supply of this type of wood, taken from freshly cut tree felling. Secondly and thirdly, this wood is only every going to be used for decorative work in single pieces i.e. house numbers. They've all been left to dry naturally and, on smoother pieces that I've already used, I do often put them into the oven before I use them to artificially crack them, it adds to the 'rusticness'...
how many of these are you making? it sounds like you are doing a few, so a small investment may not be the cheapest method, but may be better overall.
I would think that a sander of some sort would be the easiest of options, but if I were doing a few I would probably opt for the router sled. Sander wise, a belt sander is good, but my ROS would do that easily enough so it depends what you have available.
I would think that a sander of some sort would be the easiest of options, but if I were doing a few I would probably opt for the router sled. Sander wise, a belt sander is good, but my ROS would do that easily enough so it depends what you have available.
profchris
Established Member
A hand held belt sander is cheap as a way to start. A coarse belt and a fine belt would do a decent job.
But you do need some reliable way to hold the piece you are sanding. From memory (I rarely use my own sander), if it's not clamped solidly the sander will shoot the workpiece back towards you, at high speed and exactly at groin level
But you do need some reliable way to hold the piece you are sanding. From memory (I rarely use my own sander), if it's not clamped solidly the sander will shoot the workpiece back towards you, at high speed and exactly at groin level
