Is it possible...

[GrahamB]

...to make quality furniture without a planer/thicknesser/jointer?

I am looking to move from general DIY to making stand alone furniture (coffee table, bedside cabinets) but in the forums that I am reading people indicate that you need to buy rough lumber and then dimension it yourself in order to ensure it is the correct size.

I don't really have a lot of space so I'm not sure not sure the planer/thicknesser/jointer is going to be an option for me. Does anyone else out there survive without these?

Regards

Graham

 

[Rob_H]

Well, people did it for years, but it took skill and training to use the necessary hand tools. I'd be stuck without my P/T.

 

[jasonB]

Although you don't get total control over the cut and arrangement of grain/figure there are many suppliers that will machine timber to size.

If you have a table saw then its not too much work to clean up a sawn edge, all good practice of handtool skills.

Jason

 

[Digit]

I have only had machines for the last five years, prior to that I used nothing but hand tools.
I sold a house years ago in Solihull and the buyer met my price on condition that the sale included the 8 foot long sideboard that I had built. As it wouldn't have fitted the new house it suited me to agree.
The draw fronts sloped backwards at the top and had hand cut stopped Dovetails, so yes, it took quite a bit of time, but yes it can be done.

Roy.

 

[ByronBlack]

It's not difficult to use hand-tools. Once you know how to sharpen and setup your tools, all you need is a little time and practice. I've found some hand-tool operations faster, safer, cleaner and more controllable than the power-too equivalent. Also, your skill will increase a lot faster than if you relied on power-tools and machinery.

Of all my projects I've completed, it's my hand-tool projects that I have the most pride and satisfaction in.

You certainly don't need any machinery or power-tools to create stunning furniture.

 

[TheTiddles]

Of course it's possible, so is chewing off your own leg, it's just less pleasant than quickly converting some rough sawn blocks of wood into beautiful planks of timber in an hour or two, instead of it taking a week.

I did without one for years... I love my planer/thicknesser.

Aidan

 

[Digit]

Of course it's possible, so is chewing off your own leg,

:lol: :lol: :lol: Must remember that one!

Roy.

 

[wizer]

A P/T is the one machine that I would say you do need. Unless you want to use hand planes to prepare every part of your projects then there is no other way. PAR wood is expensive and once you have bought it, you can't change the thickness or if it warps or twists, you're stuck with it. I love my P/T, wouldn't give it up.

What other machinery do you have and what size if your workspace?

 

[OPJ]

I agree with all of the above. If there was one machine I could do without, it certainly wouldn't be my planer thicknesser!! :shock: If you're looking to save on floor space, you could probably get away with using a combination of bandsaw and hand-held circular saw in place of a table saw.

 

[p111dom]

You can get away with just a thicknesser though and the portable ones don't take up too much space. You just need that, an mdf board and lots of scraps for shims. It would be a pain though and I've never tried it but I know people who have. That said it's less of a pain than doing it by hand.

 

[Digit]

I'll guarantee you'll learn to sharpen a plane though! :lol:

Roy.

 

[GrahamB]

Thanks for all the replies.

I know it is possible to dimension rough lumber with hand tools but I have to confess I'm not sure that I have the time or inclination for this. I guess I had been thinking about buying it ready dimensioned from a yard.

Wizer, I currently have a set of Makita 18v cordless (Drill, circular saw, jig saw) trend T11 router, metabo random orbital sander. However I'm looking at the Festool TS55, MFT, CT22 and possibly the CMS to give me a saw table and router table.

I don't really have a workshop at the moment and do most of my work in the kitchen (hence the interest in Festool for dust collection and portability/stowability).

I could probably find room for a 'lunchbox thicknesser' (I think that is what people call them) but is this going to help me deal with timber that has warped or twisted?

All advice greatly received!

Graham

 

[MikeG.]

Graham,

a saw and router table in my kitchen would make me just a little unpopular!!! You're a brave man

A number of the woodyards I have dealt with would allow you to select your timber from the sheds, then for a charge they would saw and plane it up to your directions. This is pricey........but probably a lot cheaper than a new planer thicknesser for a year or two. I have only had a PT for a couple of years, and have only a modest jack plane........yet for over 20 years managed easily to prepare all my boards by hand.

Remember, a planer/thicknesser doesn't really help with bowed and twisted boards...........you will still be relying on your hand-planing skills even when you have the machinery.

Mike

 

[Paul Chapman]

Hi Graham,

Yes, it is possible. I have no machinery and do all mine by hand. If you do it properly then it's not difficult - but it is hard work and your productivity will be low. You will need to know how to set up your planes properly - planing rough, sawn timber requires a quite different set up from fine finishing work. A good place to start would be to look at DVDs like Rob Cosman's "Rough To Ready" http://www.classichandtools.com/acatalo ... n_DVD.html This will give you an idea of what can be achieved.

If I had the choice I would buy a planer/thicknesser simply because it's faster, less hard work and my productivity would be higher. However, if you can't afford one or don't have the space, then doing it by hand is perfectly feasible - just depends how much you want to do it.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[Ironballs]

I was rough planing a 5 foot long mahogany this week as I wanted to get and idea of grain and defects before I cut it and fed into the P/T - it was far to big and heavy to manhandle uncut. So I used a plane with an agressive cut to get the rough off and then a No 6 for a finer cut over the length. To say it was hard work and took a long time would not be doing it justice, as soon as I could see the grain it was off to the tablesaw and P/T. It's also worth pointing out that both hand planing and the P/T are dusty and messy, my P/T will not work without extraction as it blocks.

So of course it can be done, it's just a lot harder - and you spend half of your time sharpening your tools!

 

[shim20]

as said you dont need one but its much harder work, but with the right tools and practice you will get good at it. a scub plane would be handy for removing most of the rough if you going to be doing this. and a good no6 or no7

 

[ByronBlack]

It's also worth noting that you will still need to plane your wood if you want a decent finish. No matter how good your planer/thicknesser is setup you will still get the 'ripple' effect from the two/three knife block as it cuts the wood. This will give your wood a less than smooth surface and will show up in the finishing stage, so if a smooth decent finish is what you need/want you'll still need to have the nouse to use a smoothing plane or scraper.

You could in theory use a sander, but this doesn't leave as nice a finish as a plane as your rubbing the grain with abrasive rather than smoothly cutting the wood fibres.

I didn't think it would be a big issues until I finished a project (a table) and applied some oil, it looked terrible so I smoothed the parts with a plane after dismantling the piece, it looked much better, so it's well worth doing the last smoothing planing stage.

Also, to add another alternative option. You can thickness using a bandsaw and you can edge joint using a router in a table, or even a table-saw with a decent blade, so there are other options if you don't want the space/expense that a p/t initially brings. I say initially, because depending on how much work you do, your obviously going to save the money you spent on the cheapness of buying sawn timber.

 

[p111dom]

Thanks for all the replies.

I could probably find room for a 'lunchbox thicknesser' (I think that is what people call them) but is this going to help me deal with timber that has warped or twisted?

Graham

Yes it can thats what the shims are for to use on a sled. Bascially you need a flat board the width of the thicknesser. You buy a cheap pack of pine from B&Q something like 30mm square, 8 feet long. You then either hot glue gun or double sided tape a length of this pine to each edge of the board. These bits are sacraficial. They only serve as a way of the in and out feed rollers to drag this sled throught the thicknesser. Then it's a case of placing your stock to be machined on the sled between the pine strips. If it's warped it will rock. If it does you need to cut some slivers off your 30mm pine and shim the high corner. A bit like pushing a beer mat under a chair leg to stop it rocking. When you're happy either double sided tape or hot glue gun the stock and shims to the board. Draw some pencil lines across the stock so you can see more easily when it's flat. Run the whole sled throught the machine unill all the pencil lines have gone. Once they have you'll have one non twisted flat side. Lever the stock off the sled, scrape off the tape or glue, invert it and you can run it through without the sled to get perfectly parallel, flat sides without a jointer. You'll need to replace the pine stripe on the sled for the next piece. Like I said this is a chew but it's possible.

 

[Karl]

I only have a benchtop thicknesser (Makita 2012) - at least until Project Wadkin gets a move on.

My method is to use hand planes to flatten one side. Doesn't have to be perfect - just flat enough so that it can be put through the thicknesser without rocking. Once the opposite face is flat, I then alternate the board through the thicknesser until it is down to approximate thickness. The final finishing of all boards is then done with hand planes.

Surfacing boards is pretty easy really - depending on the state of the timber, I reckon that a 3' board, 8" wide could be "surfaced" (for the thicknesser) in few minutes. Scrub and jointer are all you need. Obviously a heavily twisted board would take longer, but that is where timber selection at the merchants yard comes into play.

HTH.

Cheers

Karl

 

[tnimble]

I flatten, thickness and smooth all my board by hand. For smaller boards it's very fast, for larger boards its gets a bit demanding on your stock of elbow grease. The only real hard thing I find is thicknessing multiple boards to the same thickness, this is time consuming and hard to gett it all to the same thinkness while keeping the faces nice parallel to each other. For this reason I'm going to buy a thickness planer, but only a thickness planer.

I have a Staney no 6 type 15 setup with a deep cambered blade for initial rough flattening, a Stanley no 8 type 11 with a cambered blade for final flattening and edge jointing and a Staney no 5 type 10 with a slight cambered blade for smoothing. All blanes have a Hock blade and chipbracker which hugely improves the finish performance and easy of use. (the original blades and chipbrackers are kept wrapped up in oily paper)

Edit:: I used to buy planed wood from the DIY stores many many years ago, until I found out I was paying a very high price for very poor quality with a lot of incosistant thickness and with cup and bow and had liuttle choice in timber species. Then I switched to the local timber yard who offer to either get the wood rough or finished to specified dementions. I was wrapped, but often found that boards where still a bit cupped and bowed, sometimes had burnmarks. One day I found out this was because they took the rough boards from outside storage, run them through a thciknesser both sides without any support to prevent the ends of long baords sagging down towards the floar, manually forcing them throughbevause the board other wise got stuck in the machine because of the too have cut. I now buy from another yard who will also finish boards for you (takes a few weeks before the boards are ready). You receive the wood nicely aclimated, flattened, thicknessed and packaged but at premium price. So I buy it rough. Lower price, faster at home and the freedom of grain selecteion at any stage.