Ripping and thicknessing

[Prawn_Cracker]

Hi All

I need to reproduce some bead and butt style tongue and groove cladding, it’s for my property. However, I’m in need of some help and advice to make sure I’m heading the right direction.

I want to use tulip and the plan originally was to get my local timber yard to supply 160 metres (cut to lengths) of 16mm x 100mm timber PAR. With me then machining the T&G with the bead and butt profile. The costs coming back aren’t going to give me much change out of £700. Funds on this project are really tight and if I can save a lot of money but use more of my own time then that works really well because I’m not charging myself for work for myself!

My thought now, instead of requesting fully dimensioned PAR timber, was to buy the required volume of tulip, in suitable lengths to allow me to cross cut out the required board length with minimal waste, ideally just the kerf of my sliding mitre saw if I can help it. But to have the timber; dimensioned and planed to 100mm on two of the opposite faces. Then on my table saw, with a 25 tooth rip blade, to rip out the boards and run them through this thicknesser:

https://www.speedyservices.com/12_0081-h-thicknesser

and finish out with a board that’s 16mm x 100mm x 1.25m. A weekend hire on the above thicknesser is quite reasonable and I do not own or have access to a thicknesser or planer thicknesser.

Preparing this volume of stock isn’t something I’ve done before, I usually get the timber merchant to prepare it or it’s small then I’ll rip and hand plane it. But I am so very short of funds I’d like to see if I can handle this one myself.

As a result though there are a number of questions so all and any help would be really great. I think these are the main ones are:

1. Is getting the timber merchants to dimension and plane the two faces at a thickness of 100mm, so that I can just rip out boards and thickness them to 16mm sensible? Even if it is sensible in that it’s saving me a bit of time, am I just putting labour and tooling costs back into the project that I am trying to save? I don’t really have a good idea on what additional cost this bit of machining is adding, any ideas?
2. One of the reasons for above approach is that I save on the hire cost of a more substantial planar thicknesser. The next one up from this on hire is https://www.speedyservices.com/12_0080- ... hicknesser I have never used one before, I know, from reading contributions on this forum, that there are good guidelines on how to safely use this machinery and I am happy to do this but the cost to hire is proportionately more and am I in a bit of a horses for courses here? The money I save on taking on all the preparation is lost in the additional cost of hiring a bigger tool?
3. Can someone give me a guideline on wastage so that I order the right volume of wood? If I know what my finished board size needs to be can anyone give me a rough rule of thumb what I add on for lossess and planning (if that’s possible) so I can calculate the right amount? I can probably ask the timber yard to supply me the right volume on the basis that I will be ripping an thicknessing but it’d be really helpful to hear from others experienced in this.
4. If I want to finish on a 16mm board can any give me a good idea on what dimension I should rip to make sure I can thickness to this dimension? If that’s possible?
5. Has anyone hired a thicknesser and had a good experience with them? I’m not sure how often they change their blades?! I have hired plenty of tools in the past and they are usually really well used!

Thanks in advance of any help. Seriously any and all tips and advice appreciated. I am probably making this far more complicated than it need be. It's just not something I do and want to make sure I am headed the right way.

Cheers

Andy


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[Jacob]

Planing followed by ripping is generally a bad idea as a lot of stuff is likely to bend in the process and need planing again. It's best to saw to width and thickness (plus 6mm more or less) and to length (plus whatever margin you think you need) and only then consider planing.

 

[RobinBHM]

unfortunately hardwoods are not supplied or machined in the way you propose for this project.

To cover the 100mm x 16mm section, tulipwood 1" x 5" and wider would be selected

boards are cut randomly when converted, so a 5" wide board will be between 4.5" to 5.5" wide, in practice you wont be able to order all 5" wide boards, a pack of 1" tulipwood will contain a range of widths from maybe 5" up to 10" wide. A merchant will probably supply some 6" boards and some 7" boards, even maybe some 10" and wider boards for doubling up.

It isnt practical to buy thicker timber and cut slices (known as deeping) inherent stress in thicker boards will be released when cutting and you will end up with warped boards. Also thicker boards are more expensive by volume than thinner boards.

A timber merchant may well stock a few different pack lengths and could be anything from 2.4m to say 5.0 metres so there will be some length wastage.

If a timber merchant is offering to supply PAR, it will be machined using a 4-sider, so it will come planed on all 4 edges, there wont be an option for planing to thickness only (and not good practice as Jacob mentions).

For square edged timber a waste factor of about 35% is generally allowed, so I would estimate you will need 22 cuft of 1" tulipwood, but this will be sawn and will require both surface planing and thicknessing. Cost of the timber is about £400+vat (although that is a trade price).

Does the job have to be in solid timber? I note that you are matching some butt and bead, but wondered if neatmatch machined mdf is a possibility? Or could you find a butt and bead profile in another timber that is close enough?

Or buy in softwood?
http://www.championtimber.com/Timber/Cl ... mix-credit

 

[Prawn_Cracker]

Thanks Jacob. That's used far less words than I did to describe the task!

So rip and cross cut to required length, width and height (adding dimensions on for losses to planing) then run through the planer to finished dimension.

Makes sense about things bending as your releasing any tensions in the grain.

Andy


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[woodbrains]

Hello,

If you only have the 2 faces planed, then you do not have a reference edge for ripping on the saw, either. There is no avoiding a surface planer to establish a true edge. If you are going to hire a planer thiscknesser then you may as well do the whole job yourself. 160 metres is not a tremendous amount, though perhaps a steep learning curve for a first job. There will be lots of waste though. 16 mm out of 1 inch sawn will produce much chippings! Do you have to go down to 16mm. If it didn't matter, I would just stop at the thicknesser setting that produced all the boards flat 2 sides. You'll need some chip extraction if you don't have any.

Mike.

 

[Peter Sefton]

I must admit I haven't read the thread completely but I would say Tulip is not classed as durable and not recommended for outside use. This is a lot of timber to plane up and to get rid of all the shavings. I would search the internet and try and find someone who already makes it and buy it ready made.

Cheers Peter

 

[PAC1]

I must admit I haven't read the thread completely but I would say Tulip is not classed as durable and not recommended for outside use. This is a lot of timber to plane up and to get rid of all the shavings. I would search the internet and try and find someone who already makes it and buy it ready made.

Cheers Peter

I went to a job once where tulip had completely rotted away in les than 3 years I must admit whilst I knew tulip was not durable I could not believe the deterioration over three years.

 

[Prawn_Cracker]

Thanks all for the advice and suggestions, it's really appreciated

My description of the task is poor. I basically want to rip and plane boards 16mm x 100mm x 1250mm. Then cut the bead and butt T&G into this. The cladding will be an internal hall. I definitely don't want to re-saw already cut boards. What I want to do is buy rough sawn wood and then make my own boards from that.

Robin, good point about the softwood option unfortunately I haven't yet found anyone local that can supply it in a suitable length without a lot of wastage. I could go MDF but if possible I'd like solid wood. Thanks for the estimation of 22 cubic feet, the wastage of 35%, and a trade price cost that's useful information.

Woodbrains, good point on the chip production. I hadn't considered that, despite ripping some oak lathes yesterday and being staggered by the volume of sawdust!

I think I'll search a bit harder to see if there is cladding available off the shelf. Failing that I'll speak to the timber merchant to get an idea on whether they have stock timber I could reasonably prepare myself and as first posted by Jacob definitely not try attempt to have parts of the timber pre planed. I need to rip cut and plane it all myself.

Cheers

Andy


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[Peter Sefton]

Could you use something like this?

http://catalogue.chilterntimber.co.uk/p ... 90625.html

Cheers Peter

 

[Prawn_Cracker]

I could indeed! I don't suppose you would notice that it wasn't true tongue and groove either? Cheers for that Peter.

If anyone else has recommended links for suppliers that would be great.

Cheers

Andy


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[Peter Sefton]

You could try Avon Ply

http://www.avonplywood.co.uk/Default.aspx

Or Clarkswood Bristol

http://www.clarkswood.com

I believe they both carry it in stock, not sure how far they are from you.

 

[Rhossydd]

good point on the chip production. I hadn't considered that, despite ripping some oak lathes yesterday and being staggered by the volume of sawdust!

If you think ripping generates waste, you're in for a shock when you see the volume of waste a PT generates.

If you back read through the forum, you'll find every thread from someone looking to get a PT for the first time is always told to budget for an extractor too. The problem is that PTs generate huge volumes of waste and unless it's sucked out immediately within seconds it will build up and get caught back into the cutters and hammer into the finished surface and spoil it.

For a useful insight have a look at Axminster's demo video of one of their PTs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMei7iWJm9E Note the volume of waste already in the extractor at 2:38 from just that one single bit of work, that's almost a fifth of the bag filled already.

I really would advise against hiring one as a one off. I also think you're right to be concerned about how good the blades will be on a hired item. It would be awful to hire one and then find it ruins your timber.

PTs great to have in a workshop and dramatically change what's possible, but they really don't make sense unless you have an extractor and preferably a bandsaw to get rough timber into size first.

Buying ready prepared timber sounds the best option for your circumstance.

 

[blackrodd]

Several Jewsons in sunny devon stock 4"x 3/4"bead and butt, all ready made in the usual red softwood, Pottington for one has a rack full of it in random lengths.
Regards Rodders

 

[rafezetter]

Almost everything has been covered, and if you were closer I would have offered to maybe loan out my "vintage" dewalt planer thicknesser, which I know has good blades, and is significantly better than either of those models you showed being cast iron beds. (and by odd coincedence I've upgraded the cover to take an extractor hose, which was not available before.)

Regarding that, I would not recommend you cutting the lengths to close final size before dimensioning but leave them something more like 1400mm long as many (most) of the portable style thicknessers are prone to something called snipe, which is where the start and finish cuts are deeper than the middle of the boards as they are run through - here's a good explanation from one of our very own, Steve Maskerey:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHfjSatKITQ

good technique can mitigate some of this but a safer option is to leave the board overlong then cut to final length after thicknessing to remove any snipe which is usually a few inches long.

The old adage "leave it as long as possible, for as long as possible" is never truer than when dimensioning stock.

EDIT: another idea which has just popped into my head is possibly a "maker space" these are places where craftsmen of varying types get together to do all sorts of crafting - electronics / robotics and often woodworking with machines to match. and.. and... it might be worth googling to see if there is a place that has a workshop to "hire out" - there is one in bristol that can be hired for £30 a day that has all manner of machines to use. Lastly - there may be an outside chance a local woodwork business workshop may let you "rent" the use of a machine for a few hours - never hurts to ask - and the machine will be of much better quality - even if you paid them the same amount of money it would be worth it.

 

[Jacob]

......
The old adage "leave it as long as possible, for as long as possible" is never truer than when dimensioning stock........

Often completely misunderstood.
"leave it as long as possible, for as long as possible" is good advice when selecting stock i.e. you work through your cutting list starting with longest pieces and/or largest sections first but trying to extract them from the shortest pieces /smallest sections available i.e. leaving longest / largest stock until last.
But when it comes to dimensioning your selected stock, it needs to be as short as possible i.e. near to finished length (or very short pieces combined, for convenient handling).

NB if snipe is such a problem that your are wasting wood then you need to correct the machine for snipe, or finish with a hand plane

 

[Prawn_Cracker]

Cheers again for such great advice and A thanks for the kind offer to loan, I'm too far a away [DISAPPOINTED FACE]

It's clear that one off hire isn't the way to go so you've saved me money, time and a good deal of frustration with a bunged up planar!

Rodders I am in Devon and will check out Jewson. I honestly tend not to go there but I can see from the online catalogue they have what I need. Hurrah!

Great vid from steve there too. So much knowledge and so very well presented.

One other thing. If I go softwood should router the back to stop it cupping? I wanted to use tulip because of its stability. Any tips on positioning of battens to fix to and nailing it on to minimise movement?

Andy


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