Wood planing in Norwich or nearby.

[TarquinKrikery]

Hi Newby here, we'll been visiting as a guest for a while but registered so I can ask some questions!

I recently got some non-reclaimed un-planed oak which I obviously need to have planed! I've called a couple of timber merchants local to me but none of them seem to be interested which is a real shame.

Does anyone know of any companies local to Norwich or the surrounding area that may be willing to do this? They 15' planks about 10" wide and 1" thick. I want to use them! Lol

Cheers

 

[Jacob]

The first thing is to do a design, work out a cutting list, cut up the timber for each component (length/width/thickness plus allowance for planing) and only then plane it.

 

[bugbear]

The first thing is to do a design, work out a cutting list, cut up the timber for each component (length/width/thickness plus allowance for planing) and only then plane it.

I hesitate to say it, but Jacob's quite right.

BugBear

 

[Jacob]

The first thing is to do a design, work out a cutting list, cut up the timber for each component (length/width/thickness plus allowance for planing) and only then plane it.

I hesitate to say it, but Jacob's quite right.

BugBear

Can you please stop trolling after me. If you haven't anything interesting to say better to say nothing.

 

[TarquinKrikery]

Thanks for the advice. I will probably do this anyway, however it does still not solve the problem of having nowhere to actually have the wood planed once cut to size! Lol

 

[Jacob]

Buy a plane?

 

[riclepp]

Thanks for the advice. I will probably do this anyway, however it does still not solve the problem of having nowhere to actually have the wood planed once cut to size! Lol

Have you tried Witnesham Saw Mill in Woodbridge Suffolk. I get the number and ask for Pete. He is a real old gent and a very nice guy. They will charge, as it is an extra service. As I say give him a ring you got nowt to loose.

 

[TarquinKrikery]

I'm intending to use one if not two of the pieces for shelving I have a plethora of blu rays and DVDs that have outgrown the cabinet and I like the idea of a couple of full wall length shelves about the tv on the media cabinet which is ok topped. Will tie in quite nicely I think.

As a newbie having never planed anything since woodwork at school some 18 years ago, I don't think the results would be very good on a 15' plank!

Maybe the other plank which I'm planning to use for the top of a shelving unit I've built, but even they will be 2 x 4 foot wide planks once cut and I doubt I'll be able to do a decent job with a hand plane!

 

[TarquinKrikery]

Have you tried Witnesham Saw Mill in Woodbridge Suffolk. I get the number and ask for Pete. He is a real old gent and a very nice guy. They will charge, as it is an extra service. As I say give him a ring you got nowt to loose.

Thanks just the sort of helpful advice I was after! Cheers!

 

[Eric The Viking]

Jacob and BB are making an important point though - there are several GOOD reasons to cut to length first (approximately, that is!):

1. Easier to manage than one huge board (however lovely). The bloke doing the planing will prefer it.

2. It will MOVE when it's planed and as it dries. You'll lose less thickness from each board if they're shorter when they go through the planer.

You may want 'thin', but that's better achieved in a controlled way than because you've no choice.

There are ways to mitigate the effects of the wood being 'in wind' (twisty) etc. but they all take a lot of effort to set up, and can't get away from the basic problem. The shorter it is the less material you have to remove to make it square.

They sound like nice boards. Jacob and BB are advising you how to get the best from them.

E.

 

[bugbear]

There are ways to mitigate the effects of the wood being 'in wind' (twisty) etc. but they all take a lot of effort to set up, and can't get away from the basic problem. The shorter it is the less material you have to remove to make it square.

Perhaps I can expand (a little) on this; consider a 1" thick board, 6' long.

Now imagine it is warped, by only 1" in its 6' length.

If you plane it to make it straight, you'll have no wood left at all!

BugBear

 

[riclepp]

Hi

Here we go, here is their contact details

Witnesham Sawmills
Mow Hill
Witnesham
Ipswich
Suffolk
IP6 9EH

Peter : 07849 877461

No email though. They specialise in English Oak and other timber (Ash, Sycamore, Walnut, Lime, Cherry amongst others, and the one I have bought so far). But as others have suggested, do have a cutting list and dimesion just shy of the finished dimension and finish off with your handplanes.


It is also less than 1/2 a mile from classic handtools.

I hope this helps

 

[TarquinKrikery]

Thanks for all the comments.

Valid point about having a long board with a small amount of area needing to be planed etc.

So if I wanted a nice square 14' or so shelf, you would seem to suggest cutting it into 2 or 3 smaller pieces to plane and then rejoining to make one long shelf? Would Using a biscuit jointer be suitable?

 

[Eric The Viking]

Nonononno!

That's not it, although you could certainly do that and would find smaller pieces easier to manage, probably.

Making things flat is actually a 3D problem! BB's explained it very concisely, but I'll have another go too: to get rid of 1" twist in a board, you have to lose that 1" somewhere. If you cut the board in half (theoretically, assuming the twist is even distortion along the length), The thickness you need to lose is reduced to 1/2", as each of the two pieces only twists half as far adrift. Cut it in four, and you can get four squared-up pieces out, losing only 1/4" in thickness in each of them.

If you imagine those four bits stuck back end-to-end again, they'd now be straight and square, but the grain won't align quite as it originally did, because they're 'steps' out of the original long board. The new square versions' faces are not parallel to the line of the original faces (because those were twisted).

So, to get back to the real practical problem of making nice shelves, how much thickness do you need to lose to get the board square overall, and how much do you want to lose (or can afford to)?

If the board is straight and true already, within the tolerances you want, you might do better just removing any saw marks with a belt sander or a #5 or #5 1/2 hand plane, sharpened to a fairly high angle to minimise tearout on nice figure, followed by a seal or lacquer of some sort. 1" of thickness over 14 feet isn't very much to play with!

The problem with power planers (er, thicknessers!) is the minimum cut depth (more on wider machines). That's because its infeed roller is usually serrated or toothed to push the wood into the cutter block, and those serrations cause marks that are taken off by the block. Plane a too-shallow cut and what comes out is crinkly! Hand planing doesn't have that problem.

You need the planer part of a planer-thicknesser to make one surface flat, and the thicknesser part to make a second parallel one on the other side. It's that second job that has a minimum depth.

Hope that helps,

E.

(edited coz I was being stupid, per usual)

 

[Jacob]

....
So if I wanted a nice square 14' or so shelf,

I'd go through the boards and squint down the length to find the least twisted one. You can then see at a glance how much you'd have to take off to straighten it It wouldn't matter so much about bends (within reason) as at 14" it'd be pulled down by the books and the brackets. You might get away with a bit of twist too.

you would seem to suggest cutting it into 2 or 3 smaller pieces to plane and then rejoining to make one long shelf? ....

The shelf would be on brackets so you could cut the boards to meet on a bracket without having to actually join them. Better if you can span the brackets as this would be stronger.

 

[Jelly]

The first thing is to do a design, work out a cutting list, cut up the timber for each component (length/width/thickness plus allowance for planing) and only then plane it.

I hesitate to say it, but Jacob's quite right.

BugBear

To an extent...

A very long (lets say 6.6m) board is a nightmare to handle, and can have huge disortions in it, so planing that up isn't a good plan; cut it down to make some 750mm components, and they'll each have a small distortion to remove and be a good size to handle. Great!

Now consider a shorter (say 1.8m this time) board, this has less distortion than the big one, and is a reasonable size to handle, this time you want some 200mm components, so you cut them down, and plane them up using your push sticks like a knife and fork, but then it comes to thickness them and suddenly, the component doesn't come out because it can't span the gap to the outfeed roller... Uh oh!

What i'm getting at, is it's always about choosing the right order of work for piece you're working on and the tools you have available... I tend to resaw/rip & plane larger components at their finished length, but small and some medium ones i'll cut long lengths (usually 5.4's or 6.1's) to a sensible length (say in the 1.5-2.0m range) that will give me several of them, resaw/rip & plane that and cut to final size.

 

[Jacob]

The first thing is to do a design, work out a cutting list, cut up the timber for each component (length/width/thickness plus allowance for planing) and only then plane it.

I hesitate to say it, but Jacob's quite right.

BugBear

To an extent...

A very long (lets say 6.6m) board is a nightmare to handle, and can have huge disortions in it, so planing that up isn't a good plan; cut it down to make some 750mm components, and they'll each have a small distortion to remove and be a good size to handle. Great!

Now consider a shorter (say 1.8m this time) board, this has less distortion than the big one, and is a reasonable size to handle, this time you want some 200mm components, so you cut them down, and plane them up using your push sticks like a knife and fork, but then it comes to thickness them and suddenly, the component doesn't come out because it can't span the gap to the outfeed roller... Uh oh!

What i'm getting at, is it's always about choosing the right order of work for piece you're working on and the tools you have available... I tend to resaw/rip & plane larger components at their finished length, but small and some medium ones i'll cut long lengths (usually 5.4's or 6.1's) to a sensible length (say in the 1.5-2.0m range) that will give me several of them, resaw/rip & plane that and cut to final size.

Agree. Group together small pieces into one piece to suit the machine - and to suit hand planing 200mm is getting a bit small.