Wood + Jointer?

[BrodieB]

Afternoon all,

This is my first post ever to a forum so forgive the terrible title and the long winded story.

I've finally got myself a little 12'x6' man-cave shed, it's time to spread my woodworking wings and start learning. However, I've hit a small stumbling block of where to get wood from at a reasonable price and the correct tools. Based in Nottinghamshire I completed my first cutting board with some maple and sapele from Nottingham Hardwood Timber (NHT) at Saxondale.

Sadly, running head first with pure excitement into buying hardwood for the first time, I forgot about squaring and things. I quickly realised my wood was a bit twisted and was never going to clamp up for a board. With no jointer or thicknesser in my little shed I took it to a local gate manufacturer who squared it up (perfectly) for £20. A little later I'm in at £60 for 1 1220mm length of 50x70mm maple and 1 2260mm length of 50x70mm sapele after machining. Safe to say I've learnt some lessons.

So the point of my post is; in the Nottinghamshire area where can I purchase manageable lengths (2400mm longest) of hardwood at reasonable prices other than NHT (no issues with him, however he is only open Saturdays and I work shift work which makes it difficult) and any recommendations on a small bench top planer and maybe a bandsaw? Ideally I'd be happy with sensible sized offcuts if anyone knows of people/companies selling them?

Thanks so much for your time!

BrodieB

 

[kevinlightfoot]

Seems very expensive for what amounts to very little machining,I am also based in Notts,Mansfield to be exact,bee not here for three years and I still return to Stoke to buy my hardwoods,I can't find anywhere local to even buy decent sawn unsorted redwood.Have a run over to Stoke,Hymor Timber,they usually have a. decent selection of offcuts as well give them a call before you go .Good luck with your local search best regards Kevin.

 

[MikeG.]

Welcome Brodie.

Have you got a bench? Because a £30 or £40 hand plane would solve this issue.

 

[Trevanion]

Seems very expensive for what amounts to very little machining

Seems perfectly reasonable to me from a commercial standpoint, 6 pieces face and edge squared and thicknessed down to nominal size which would take about 10 minutes (Less time if put through a four-cutter but it costs 50P to start up each time), perhaps chatting and discussing for another 10 minutes, putting other work on hold to do it...

I know a few people that charge a much larger than normal flat-rate for the first hour regardless if the job takes 10 minutes or a full hour, every hour thereafter is the normal rate.

Back to the question, wot Mike said, hand plane.

 

[kevinlightfoot]

Sorry I seem to have read just two pieces ,maybe I am wrong.

 

[Trevanion]

Sorry I seem to have read just two pieces ,maybe I am wrong.

Ah, you're right! Sorry. I counted the pieces in the cutting board rather than the total length stated.

 

[BrodieB]

Thanks all for your thoughts so far.

Sorry I could of been a bit clearer about what was machined for me. I'd already chopped the maple down to 3 lengths of approx 400mm so he ran 4 lengths in total, the sapele being full length. The chap that did it delivered a high standard in a very quick space of time and I was more than happy paying him for the work he did. However, as you can all imagine, I'd prefer to be able to do it myself. I did contact another place local to me who wanted £50, although I'm sure that was a 'I really don't want to do that job for you price' :lol: .

A hand plane sounds like a good plan, I have a decent bench with vice. Any recommendations for a good quality plane to work approx 1000mm lengths? Any quick tips to hand planing? What sort of kit/equipment is best for sharpening the blade as I imagine a sharp blade is tip number one?

Thanks again for sharing your time and knowledge. I really appreciate it! I will definitely look into the stoke supplier. Would be much nicer if there was somewhere a bit more local just to compare prices. As this was my first endeavour into buying wood that didn't come from Wickes :roll: I wasn't sure if £17 for a wavey 2260 x 50 x 70mm length of sapele was on par.

Thanks again.

 

[Racers]

Brooks brothers in Nottingham is where I usually get my wood from, there is a list of wood yards on the general woodworking page in the reference and information section.
There are other places like MAC timbers who have an open day and Rowan woodland products have a sale at St Joseph's tea room at whitwick it's worth just for the cake . Richard Arnold had some wood for sale at his last charity do, and you could get to meet some of the people from here.

My recommendation for a plane is a record 5 1/2 big enough for most jobs and a No60 1/2 block plane both available second hand or new it you can afford a lie Nelsen Veritas etc.

Pete

 

[worn thumbs]

Clearly a novice who has been watching youtube.Americans have jointers-we have planers.What you need is a Stanley No5 and a few hours of practice.At which point you will have some wood suitable for finishing.You might sand it or scrape it and an Englishman would use a cabinet scraper to remove the tears,if there are any.

 

[Trevanion]

Americans have jointers-we have planers.

An English jointer is actually a second cutter head mounted onto the fence of a surface planer so that it would do a square face and edge in a single pass. Absolutely lethal!

Fortunately, they're very rare but one of the more common ones was the Wadkin PAR, which should've been used with a powerfeed unit on top of the cutter block but I've seen them used without.

 

[worn thumbs]

I spent several years attending to one of those.Changing a set of knives took forever since there were 16 of them.We never referred to it as a jointer-it was the PAR planer.

 

[manglitter]

.....

A hand plane sounds like a good plan, I have a decent bench with vice. Any recommendations for a good quality plane to work approx 1000mm lengths? Any quick tips to hand planing? What sort of kit/equipment is best for sharpening the blade as I imagine a sharp blade is tip number one?

......

Thanks again.

Welcome to UK Workshop

The first rule of UKW is We do NOT discuss sharpening.

The second rule of UKW is WE DO NOT DISCUSS SHARPENING!!!

Wars have been started over such things!

But if you do want to hear all the thoughts and opinions on sharpening methods, search the forum for sharpening.
There is a huge thread, approx 1million pages long. It's the one covered in tears and blood stains. Plenty of good information in there.

Also +1 for a 5 1/2 jack plane and plenty of practice.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

[Trevanion]

I spent several years attending to one of those.Changing a set of knives took forever since there were 16 of them.We never referred to it as a jointer-it was the PAR planer.

Yes, the machine was called the PAR planer, but that vertical block was called a "jointing block" or a "jointer", especially on the purely two-sided machines. They are very rare but they are out there in the wild.

 

[Steve Maskery]

There is a little one-man-band in Rainworth (well, he does have a store-hand, called Carl, who, if he were any more laid-back would be totally horizontal). Craig runs High Park Timber in Rainworth, the same building as Rainworth Fencing. He is a good bloke, used to work for Nixon Knowles.
Not as big as NK, but very helpful, accommodating, and his prices are good. I bought some excellent Unsorted there last week.
He also has Oak, not sure if he has anything else in stock, though he did get some Accoya for my brother. As good a price as anywhere else.

 

[kevinlightfoot]

Thanks for that post Steve ,Rainworth is just up the road from me.I bought some fencing from them a couple of years back,I asked the chap behind the counter if he knew where I could buy some decent timber from,he just looked at me with a vacant grin and said he hadn't a clue,I will definitely try them for my next stock up.Is theoak they stock European joinery grade or American?

 

[Steve Maskery]

American White.
If you go into the shop and walk down to the far end, Craig has his counter there.

 

[Lonsdale73]

A plane might well help with squaring timber but first the OP has to source some timber to be squared, which I believe is the question he was asking. There's a guy in Mansfield who regularly advertises boards on ebay. Collection can be arranged.

 

[BrodieB]

Clearly a novice who has been watching youtube.Americans have jointers-we have planers.What you need is a Stanley No5 and a few hours of practice.At which point you will have some wood suitable for finishing.You might sand it or scrape it and an Englishman would use a cabinet scraper to remove the tears,if there are any.

Thanks for your thoughts. Stanley No5 sounds good. Sorry for the - as you’ve mentioned - ‘novice’ mix-up. Sadly having no Father and no relatives or friends in this area of work. The go to place for learning anything in today’s society is YouTube. Which clearly has it’s downfalls. Luckily I’ve now found this forum and hopefully I can start to learn the ‘Englishman’ terms.

 

[BrodieB]

.....

A hand plane sounds like a good plan, I have a decent bench with vice. Any recommendations for a good quality plane to work approx 1000mm lengths? Any quick tips to hand planing? What sort of kit/equipment is best for sharpening the blade as I imagine a sharp blade is tip number one?

......

Thanks again.

Welcome to UK Workshop

The first rule of UKW is We do NOT discuss sharpening.

The second rule of UKW is WE DO NOT DISCUSS SHARPENING!!!

Wars have been started over such things!

But if you do want to hear all the thoughts and opinions on sharpening methods, search the forum for sharpening.
There is a huge thread, approx 1million pages long. It's the one covered in tears and blood stains. Plenty of good information in there.

Also +1 for a 5 1/2 jack plane and plenty of practice.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

Haha, thanks for rule number 1 & 2. They’re noted! I’ll head over to those pages when I’m blunt!

 

[loftyhermes]

Hi Brodie, try Ron Curries in Sutton in Ashfield. They always have Oak and Sapele plus sometimes they can have bits of other hardwoods. https://roncurrie.co.uk