Hand planing multiple components to same width.

[Sgian Dubh]

Wow, was your wood dry enough before you started working it, Tony? 2mm in 80 is too much movement for seasoned beech.

It is a lot of shrinkage, I agree Mike. However, European beech does have a shrinkage factor of 10.8% tangentially, and 5.8% radially as it dries from Fibre Saturation Point (~30 MC) to Oven Dry (0% MC). I ran some calculations using these shrinkage factors in a spreadsheet I created, and it only requires a reduction in MC of 7 percentage points (e.g., 17% MC down to 10% MC) to see an approximate 2 mm shrinkage in a piece of tangentially sawn beech just 80 mm wide, and about half that shrinkage in a piece the same width that is radially sawn. Slainte.

 

[woodbloke66]

This is the set up I mentioned, using a piece of Brown Oak as an example. The direction of travel and rotation of the cutter are illustrated by the green arrows, the cutter being just proud of the timber:

The push board has a large piece of ply screwed to it:

...so that as the cut starts, your hands are well away from the cutter. As the timber passes through, the cutter is then:

...completely shrouded by the overhanging 'shield' on the push block. The push block is around 18mm thick so there's plenty of room between the underside of the shield and the top of the cutter. Unless you're completely happy in using a router table, this is a technique that can't be recommended for a newcomer. If required, feather boards could be used to push the work against the fence - Rob

 

[ED65]

Normally I would plane a face side, face edge and then use a marking gauge for the opposite side and work down to the line. Inevitably though, in trying to balance squareness and straightness of the second edge while keeping things parallel, I end up slightly out.

I'm going to suggest a completely different tack to the responses so far, despite shooting (in a shooting board or just directly on the workbench surface) being perfect for this type of thing.

Instead, sort out being able to joint an edge with a board held upright that reliably gives you square, so you only have to keep track of straight/parallel. Then the problem basically goes away; plus it's helpful in so many other ways, which is why this is a cornerstone skill.

You don't have to be able to do this by skill and judgement through long practice, just jig the operation. Shooting is but one way to do this, but it has innate restrictions. So 'cheat' to allow planing of every edge square every time, then the restriction on length goes away.

 

[yetloh]

No idea how thick or wide your components need to be, but I have had to make quite a few lengths of holly stringing in two different widths, but all 3mm thick. Stock is initially thicknessed to 3mm using a slave board on the planer/thicknesser, then bandsawn to widthe a little wider than the required widths (4 or 5mm). To bring these to exact width I have a jig designed around my jack plane. It has a retaining fence each side to guide the plane; Inboard of these is a lower level which, on each side is wide enough for the plane to run without fouling the blade - call it the plane track. In the yet lower area between the plane tracks are two 3mm wide grooves of the depth necessary for the plane to stop cutting when the width gets down to 4 and 5mm respectively. There is an end stop to prevent the plane pushing the stock out of the grooves. Works perfectly, is very satisfying to use and easily scaleable for bigger components.

Jim