Planing plank without use of a P/T

[Jensmith]

What's the best way of planing down a rough cut plank when you haven't got a P/T?

The piece of wood in question is 25mm thick by 150mm x 600mm long and is Jelutong so a fairly soft wood.

It looks like it's been roughly cut on a bandsaw.

I have a hand plane but don't want to end up with it not being flat / square.

Thanks,

Jennifer,

 

[Pvt_Ryan]

The way I was told/shown is set the plank on a flat surface with the flatest side down. Get two straight sticks that are just wider than the plank, and place one near you and one further back. now look along the plank and see if the rear stick is visible or not if its not in theory that part of the plank is level so move one or more of the sticks. Where the sticks are angled upwards are your high spots so make them with a pencil and use your plane to remove the high spots (give it say 3 cuts) and place the sticks back and check again, repeat until the rear stick is hidden. Then repeat for the next part and so on, once you have done that this will be your face side that all your other sides are squared to. no pick an edge and do use a set square (from the face side) to find the high parts, once you have removed the high parts give the whole length of the edge 2 or 3 full length cuts. This will be the face edge, Flip the board and do the other edge and then lay flat and do the final face.

Hope that helps.

I think I remembered that right and if not I am sure I will be corrected within 10min..

Ryan

 

[bosshogg]

Nicely described by Ryan, one other thing that may help is if you put a dark line on the top of the sighting stick furthest away from you it helps by way of visual contrast. As it sounds like this is a one off,black draw a line with a felt-tip pen along the top edge of the face of the sight stick, which has to be parallel (as do the sticks in reality) a thin but easily visible line is all that's required. You hunker down and sight the farthest stick over the nearest one, that way you work as described until they view parallel...bosshogg

you can't help a man who doesn't tell you what he wants

 

[stev]

Jennifer,

In addition to your hand plane a reliable straight edge, a pair of winding sticks and a marking guage will be useful.

Use the longest plane you can find and, as previously pointed out lay the board on your bench whichever way up makes it most stable. I would tend to just begin planing which will naturally hit the high spots first with a long plane tending not to follow the contours of the wood, the main things to be aware of at this stage is that even a long plane will follow a convex curve so use the straight edge to check for that (the edge of a decent plane makes a useful quick straight edge) and also check for winding. Deal with any convexity (is that a real word?) and winding first by hitting the high spots.

Keep checking with straight edge and winding sticks (use the straight edge along the length at varoius points, across the width at various points and along the diagonals).

When you're happy with one face set your marking guage and scribe off the thickness all round the board, flip it and plane to the line.

Alternatively remove the bulk of the waste by 'skiing' it off with a router. Make an MDF box into which the board is mounted with the box edges standing higher than the board. Screw a board to the base of a big router and (ideally using a surface trim cutter but a 2 flute straight cutter will do) run the router across the board with the board screwed to its base running against the top of the box. Check out Ron Fox's tips on the Wealden Tools website.

Alternatively, find a friendly workshop nearby and come to an arrangement over using their machines. I just spent an hour or so at a local factory using their wide belt sander which cost significantly more than the entire contents of my workshop and acieved a finish that would have taken me days to create. The boards I was sanding were 2' wide so I would have had to cut them up, thickness them, joint them and then hand plane them or hand plane them from scratch. A small financial investment in machine time occasionally helps me to keep my costs more sensible.

Too much waffle?

Cheers
Steve

 

[Racers]

Hi, Jennifer

Take it to your local joinery firm, flutter eye lashes act girly etc and they will plane it for you, mind you it never works for me :wink:

Pete

 

[Dibs-h]

Hi, Jennifer

Take it to your local joinery firm, flutter eye lashes act girly etc and they will plane it for you, mind you it never works for me :wink:

Pete

might if you left your wooden earrings at home. :lol:

 

[Pvt_Ryan]

Hi, Jennifer

Take it to your local joinery firm, flutter eye lashes act girly etc and they will plane it for you, mind you it never works for me :wink:

Pete

That's because you are fluttering your eye lashes at the wrong guys, look for the guy in the tight pink tank top who stands like a little teapot and shakes his finger






(yes I am stereotyping for the sake of the jibe)

 

[Racers]

Hi, Chaps

I will look for him next time :wink:

Pete


Its you isn't Pvt_Ryan :shock:

 

[Pvt_Ryan]

Shhh I'm undercover!!!

 

[marcus]

If you decide to go the hand plane route I would get some scraps you don't care about to practice on first. It's not uncommon for the first few attempts to end up taking up a lot more timber than you intend, and to have very little board left at the end!

Marcus

 

[Jensmith]

Thanks guys, that's really helpful. I'll have a go at it this weekend.
Thanks Marcus, I will definately have a practise first.

 

[jumps]

you also have a router option........

edit - I had missed Stev's reference to this earlier (even though I had scanned his post!)

 

[Eric The Viking]

you also have a router option........

Too right.

I've got one of these:



It gives a really nice finish, and the rounded corners stop it digging-in and leaving too obvious marks.

It also gives me a broad grin when I use it!

E.

 

[Jensmith]

you also have a router option........

Too right.

I've got one of these:



It gives a really nice finish, and the rounded corners stop it digging-in and leaving too obvious marks.

It also gives me a broad grin when I use it!

E.

Thanks Eric I found it on Wealden tools but I only have a 1/4" router so that's no good to me. Might try a straight cutter though as previously suggested.

 

[dickm]

If you can ignore the fluttery eyelashes stereotyping , I'd still seriously recommend finding a local joiner with a big planer, unless you are really in to hard physical labour. Two minutes, and your board will be flatter than you could hope to achieve in a lot longer time.

 

[Jensmith]

I think the board is fairly flat, it's just roughly cut. I think for the size of the plank it would be more effort to find someone to do it for me than to do it myself. I could be wrong though!