Help me get square!

[Saddleworthian]

Hi everyone, newbie here. Home workshop but well stocked with tools and machinery. I’ve stopped buying S4S and started buying rough cut Sapele 2.5m timbers.
Despite making a sled for the good quality table saw, I’m struggling to get a perfectly straight edge.
I have a jointer/planer but the infeed table is only 14” long, not enough for big timber.
Any ideas which will help.

All contributions welcome and appreciated.

 

[Jacob]

Hi everyone, newbie here. Home workshop but well stocked with tools and machinery. I’ve stopped buying S4S and started buying rough cut Sapele 2.5m timbers.
Despite making a sled for the good quality table saw, I’m struggling to get a perfectly straight edge.
I have a jointer/planer but the infeed table is only 14” long, not enough for big timber.
Any ideas which will help.

All contributions welcome and appreciated.

Main thing is to cut your timber to size (plus margin for planing) from the cutting list and only then try to square it up and plane, piece by piece.
It's much easier
A lot of beginners think you square it up first from long pieces, like the PAR or S4S you can buy, but you don't.
In fact it's beginner mistake no 1!

 

[mikej460]

This video shows how you use a sled in a small thicknesser
Milling Rough Lumber Without a Jointer Using a Few Simple Jigs - YouTube

She also has a video on how to use a taper jig to cut a straight edge on a tablesaw

 

[RobinBHM]

Hi everyone, newbie here. Home workshop but well stocked with tools and machinery. I’ve stopped buying S4S and started buying rough cut Sapele 2.5m timbers.
Despite making a sled for the good quality table saw, I’m struggling to get a perfectly straight edge.
I have a jointer/planer but the infeed table is only 14” long, not enough for big timber.
Any ideas which will help.

All contributions welcome and appreciated.

As Jacob says - cut it close to finished length.

sawn Sapele won’t have straight, parallel edges, so you need to get a straight edge to start - tracksaw or circular saw and a straight edge.

sawn hardwood will be sawn, then kiln dried so the boards will have bows, cups and twists.

So start by getting 1 straight edge, then use table saw to do a parallel rip.

Then you need to get flatten with your planer - you need a surface planer and thicknesser. If you have a bowed board - run the first foot or so over the planer until its lifted away from the cutters, retract and take another bite. Once you’ve knocked most of the bow off that end, turn the board around and run through from other end - that process will help you get over the short surface Planer bed.

BTW, only do this with guard in place and don’t attempt unless you are confident it is safe - you might need roller stands.

 

[johnnyb]

hi nuisance you can't get a straight edge. my guess as your a bit scant on details is as jacob says planing shorter lengths is key. but take some time to figure out exactly what's awry. it does sound like your planer isn't doing its job. I'm confident a board under 4ft would be straightened on mine but over that is not always true. definitely takes some skill to get results even on a bigger machine. I found once I had a decent planer/ thicknesser everything worked.at that point it became hard not to acheive square things.

 

[johnnyb]

Robins technique only works for me on boards shorter than the tables. on longer boards it's results in the trickiest of wrong a slow bow. if I want flat I run the boards with the belly on the table and it first puts a small flat in the middle then the flat gradually extends and voila a flat board.but even this has a skill factor in the first rocky passes over the cutters!

 

[baldkev]

I do as robin described. I have a 12" p/t with tables that must be about 5 foot though.. it may help you to draw a straight line ( chalk or sharpie can be good ) so you can see where you are aiming to be.

 

[Bojam]

Agree with Jacob and Robin that you should only try to flatten and square boards that are close to finish length. There are various ways to do this depending on the machines/tools at your disposal. For ages, I planed one face flat and squared one edge by hand (using a 5 1/2 Jack plane) before using the thicknesser to get me to S4S. I work exclusively with tropical hardwoods as that is what's available locally and the process was laborious and hard on the tools. The hand plane blade needed very frequent sharpening. I sometimes really struggled with squaring an edge on a long board by hand and found I got more reliable results using a straight bit and a split fence with shims on the router table.

Recently the new planer-thicknesser I ordered finally arrived. The surface planer beds are 1400mm long. The process is now so much quicker, easier and bang-on accurate. I realise these machines aren't cheap - especially with recent price hikes - but if you want the simplest solution then I would seriously consider investing in a bigger surface planer or combined PT. If you're in the UK, or somewhere with a decent second hand marketplace, then a good used machine might be more affordable than buying new.

If that isn't an option then hand planes are the traditional approach and with skill will work well. But clearly flattening and squaring large Sapele (or other hardwood) boards by hand will be slow going. Alternatively, sleds and jigs for the thicknesser, table saw, router table, etc. can all work but are ultimately compromise solutions - work arounds - to not having an adequately sized surface planer.

A surface planer (used in conjunction with a thicknesser planer) is the machine designed exclusively to achieve what you are trying to do.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

My way of dealing with this is as folllows:

1. Cut the lengths roughly to size - the odd inch can be trimmed at the end. Use the straightest bits for the longest lengths if possible - this means that you will lose less thickness when the boards are planed flat.
2. Very short lengths are best left at least ~60cm long and cut to size after thicknessing.
3. I have a basic cheap planer. Frequently the length to be planed is longer than the planer bed. Start planing with any bow in the board upwards - this will plane the ends first. As it flattens the centre of the board will be the last to be planed.
4. Once flat put through thicknesser to get an even thickness. Best not to dimension precisely but leave a few cuts in case moisture and internal tensions distort the board a little.
5. Same process used for the sides of the board.
6. Once one side is flat the other side can either be thicknessed (if it will fit), or planed to a finished width, or run against the fence on a bandsaw (in my case) or a table saw (if you have one).

 

[Jacob]

Robins technique only works for me on boards shorter than the tables. on longer boards it's results in the trickiest of wrong a slow bow. if I want flat I run the boards with the belly on the table and it first puts a small flat in the middle then the flat gradually extends and voila a flat board.but even this has a skill factor in the first rocky passes over the cutters!

I do it with two push sticks both in the middle of the piece - one pressing down the other pressing the piece towards the fence. Walk it past the cutters without removing or repositioning the push sticks

 

[johnnyb]

the belly down method seems counter intuitive but it works on a set up planer.
bow belly up will always result in an slow bow. I reckon it's possible to predict the amount it will be bowed. let's assume you've planed a bit off the first bit of board and it resting next to the blades.the amount of bow will be equal to the bow where the board touches the end of the infeed until the other high point goes onto the infeed plus the drop from the end of the outfield.
belly down means coping with rocking initially but the flat part grows consistently until the whole board is flat...try it.

 

[Chunkytfg]

Could always run it through the table saw using a spirit level as a moving straight edge.

 

[Jacob]

the belly down method seems counter intuitive but it works on a set up planer.
bow belly up will always result in an slow bow. I reckon it's possible to predict the amount it will be bowed. let's assume you've planed a bit off the first bit of board and it resting next to the blades.the amount of bow will be equal to the bow where the board touches the end of the infeed until the other high point goes onto the infeed plus the drop from the end of the outfield.
belly down means coping with rocking initially but the flat part grows consistently until the whole board is flat...try it.

Bin doing it for years. Particularly useful on things like sash stiles - belly down may leave it too thin on the other side in the middle, but it ends up out of sight and nice and flat on the face side, with enough thickness top and bottom to fit the housings.