slab flattening

tule peak timber · March 21, 2024, 09:38:25 AM

Over the years I've commented and posted on this subject, mostly from all of the different router jig builds I've evolved to flatten slabs too large to run through a machine. I've also touted the prowess of a large powered hand planer in the hands of a guy who knows what he is doing. So, fast forward to the current job, size and my age.

I think it might be time to look at a slab surfacer and from what I can see, it boils down to the Woodmizer surfacing machine or a machine I found online called the Jointawood. Two different approaches and I'm wondering if anyone here has any comments/experience with or regarding these two approaches. I'm not going to invest in a full tilt CNC machine for several reasons, so I think it will be one of these two.

Appreciate any input. It's time for me to start looking at the competition!
Rob

Hilltop366 · March 21, 2024, 10:29:04 AM

That Jointawood looks pretty slick, I had mentioned the idea of something similar in someones DIY slab flattener thread using parts of a jointer or buying a helical head for one or spindle shaper.

As I was watching the video I was thinking that it would be handy if there was a way to joint the slab as well while it was on the table sitting flat only to look in the "products" section to see that they offer a router/jointer attachment.

customsawyer · March 21, 2024, 11:24:25 AM

I have the WM Slabmizer. It does pretty good. I've only used the sanding attachment once and wasn't impressed. Might be because I didn't give it enough time to figure it out. One of the things I did that was on the smart side of the scale, was getting a extra head. I can be changing the knives on one head, while the help is driving the machine. It also lets me have the head up on a table, where it's easier to work on. I learned from Old Greenhorn that it works better if you move the machine front to back by hand. It goes about twice as fast. I still adjust side to side with the joy stick but that is it. I can normally plane both sides of a 40" by 8' slab in less than 30 min. Since I'm not just standing around pushing the joystick, it takes less beer too.

nopoint · March 21, 2024, 04:38:45 PM

The jointawood looks pretty cool. Wider cutter head more efficient than the single rotating vertical tool. One of my Amish neighbors built a similar unit with a wider head and a big gas engine mounted. Capital S Scary! Haven't seen it in a while they must have decided to go another route. I would buy a Shopbot or similar CNC router before I spent that kind of money on the Woodmizer machine. If the programing scares you it shouldn't. On the router you can build some canned programs and change a few things and be cutting. If you need multiple passes, set it and walk away. Shopbot has an easy interface and I'm sure many other brands do as well. This isn't the line by line g-code based world of yesteryear.

tule peak timber · March 21, 2024, 07:54:20 PM

I appreciate the feedback. I'm still looking but will pull the trigger in the not too distant future. Right now I'm doing some research on what size I really need, and it might not be the largest model that Jointawood makes. I also need a kiln upgrade and a storefront, not to mention extra covered storage. Does this ever end?

Larry · March 21, 2024, 09:04:03 PM

Two local guys have full time business flattening slabs and cranking out tables. One has been using the Slabmizer for about 6 years and the other has been using the Wood Wizz as sold by Baker for a couple of years. From watching both, the Wood Wizz seems faster but that could also be due to the operator or cutter sharpness. Both guys seem happy.

I'm still using a router bridge but I don't do many.

Ianab · March 21, 2024, 09:45:07 PM

That Jointawood does look like a pretty slick machine. The planer head is probably faster than a rotary cutter, if the slab is reasonably flat and you don't have to take multiple passes. A router style cutter takes a narrower pass, but can cut deeper on each pass.

What's the price like compared to a general purpose CNC machine? From looking at it, it's already got 95% of a basic CNC machine, it's just been programmed for only one function. But if that's the only thing you need it to do, that's fine. Other shops might go with a more general purpose CNC, that could flatten slabs one day, engrave signs the next, and cut out components from sheet goods the day after, depending on what jobs they were working on.

tule peak timber · March 21, 2024, 10:39:57 PM

I saw the wood wizz at a show in Vegas and didn't think too much of it, but that was years ago when it first came out. I told the rep at the show that the machine tied up a worker to run it and wasn't going to save me any time. My error???Fast forward to the newer slab flatteners that have more automated functions, and to me, more attractive. I don't do sheet goods so a real CNC probably is over kill. Price wise the Jointawood will land here between 30-35 K$ so not a small investment, but less than a CNC. My particular style of woodworking is to take a log, make it flat, and make the flat pieces three dimensional again usually from just one flat reference, on the inside. Got to make things flat faster!

blackhawk · March 22, 2024, 09:34:09 AM

Quote from: nopoint on March 21, 2024, 04:38:45 PMThe jointawood looks pretty cool. Wider cutter head more efficient than the single rotating vertical tool. One of my Amish neighbors built a similar unit with a wider head and a big gas engine mounted. Capital S Scary! Haven't seen it in a while they must have decided to go another route. I would buy a Shopbot or similar CNC router before I spent that kind of money on the Woodmizer machine. If the programing scares you it shouldn't. On the router you can build some canned programs and change a few things and be cutting. If you need multiple passes, set it and walk away. Shopbot has an easy interface and I'm sure many other brands do as well. This isn't the line by line g-code based world of yesteryear.

I agree with nopoint on a used CNC. I have a Shopbot from 2006. I have been flattening slabs on it like crazy over the past few months for other people. I have a canned program that runs right from the Shopbot software. Put in your length, width, depth of cut and that's it. I can walk away and do other things while the CNC makes me money. You can find an older Shopbot with a spindle for $10K or less.

nopoint · March 22, 2024, 12:21:27 PM

Tule peak, I looked at your web page. You have some really nice stuff. Some of your work could have been simplified with CNC. Curves, circles, inlays etc... As a Tech Ed Teacher I routinely get high school and occasionally Middle schoolers running this equipment. Don't be intimidated. Obviously hard from the outside to see the whole picture of your scenario. I'm not an agent for Shopbot but have set several up at different schools over time and have been very happy with their product and support. The other positive is they have a pretty easy to learn interface that is mostly graphics based. I'm sure other cnc companies are just as good or better I just don't have first hand experience with them. If you want to message me I would be more than happy to discuss this via phone in greater detail if you would like.

tule peak timber · March 22, 2024, 07:54:36 PM

Thanks again to all for the input.
Yes, I will PM you. I always brag to the customers that we are the only kids on the block using stone age tools to produce the volume we do. I also need to think about who might come to work here, their capabilities and frankly, smarter ways of doing things.
Cheers,
Rob

scsmith42 · March 22, 2024, 10:00:53 PM

Rob, you might also want to check out the surfaces from TruCut mills. I saw one at the Paul Bunyon show surfacing an 8' wide slab.

https://www.trucutmills.com/surfacers/

Brad_bb · March 22, 2024, 11:37:03 PM

Tonight I took a 30" square end grain maple butcher block to someone with a slabmizer. The height of the block was 11.5" at the corners. It's well worn from years of cutting meat. It came from my buddies family neighborhood grocery store that operated from 1922-1976. He gave me one of the two butcher blocks. It's worn down in places probably to 10 or so inches. Well we found out tonight that the max thickness the slabmizer can do is ~8.25". He said they advertise 9 inches and the scale it to 9", but it was clear that it's max height was only 8.25", so I have to bring the block home and figure out how I'm going to flatten it.

Old Greenhorn · March 23, 2024, 07:56:43 AM

Brad, I haven't tried this but it makes sense to me with the time I have on the slabmizer: How about making a lower stage and placing it between the bunks on the floor. Make the height of the stage so that it places the top surface of your target block in the working range? You may have to move a bunk temporarily and the stage will need some weight/bracing to keep it generally in place, but I can't see why that wouldn't work for a one-off job.

Hilltop366 · March 23, 2024, 09:39:01 AM

I'm thinking that a shallow cut around the outer edge to prevent tear out then flatten with the sawmill.

Hilltop366 · March 23, 2024, 09:44:27 AM

If using a circular saw to make the first cut score with a knife first.

doc henderson · March 23, 2024, 10:10:51 AM

yes, I would not hesitate to cut it like a cookie on a band mill.

moodnacreek · March 23, 2024, 01:37:39 PM

Because I specialize in rough lumber I have to resaw with the same saw that cut the log. The only way around this is to cut many of these 'slabs' so called, and stack them on a concrete or steel base, sticker all the way to the ends, pile high and weight very heavy. Keep sawing and stacking and after 2 years + and a long dry spell take down the oldest pile and stand them up in a building. Many can be dried flat this way.

21incher · March 23, 2024, 04:27:53 PM

I see the difference between the woodmizer flattner and a cnc router being mostly if you plan on adding an employee to take full advantage of the cnc router. A flattner would be easy for you to run without having to learn to use cad and cam software . A cnc router with an good technician could easily flatten slabs along with adding artistic details to projects like copying pictures of things like hand carvings. Those hand fitted s curve interface slabs could be cut in minutes using pictures to determine the mating and high accuracy templates for hand projects would only take minutes. The software license and maintenance on a cnc router will also be higher. In idle time you could actually turn scrap materials into accent pieces and lighting fixtures. Both will do the job, it's the idle time a cnc router has the capability to allow new creativity at a cost.

tule peak timber · March 25, 2024, 10:46:02 PM

Quote from: nopoint on March 22, 2024, 12:21:27 PMTule peak, I looked at your web page. You have some really nice stuff. Some of your work could have been simplified with CNC. Curves, circles, inlays etc... As a Tech Ed Teacher I routinely get high school and occasionally Middle schoolers running this equipment. Don't be intimidated. Obviously hard from the outside to see the whole picture of your scenario. I'm not an agent for Shopbot but have set several up at different schools over time and have been very happy with their product and support. The other positive is they have a pretty easy to learn interface that is mostly graphics based. I'm sure other cnc companies are just as good or better I just don't have first hand experience with them. If you want to message me I would be more than happy to discuss this via phone in greater detail if you would like.

Thank you for the lengthy phone call this evening. I never thought I'd be looking at a CNC and now my wife has me blowing out the side of the shop building with crane access and whatever that might entail!
Thanks again for reassuring me that I would not be looking at thousands of pages of 1's and 0's, trying to set something up. I've been out of the game way too long.

doc henderson · March 25, 2024, 11:20:41 PM

brand new 5 x 8-foot cnc router. 52 K with vacuum and all the bells and whistles. retired ortho doc friend with a winery, observatory and too many toys.

he was a carpenter before going to med school, he did ortho so it cannot be too hard.

it was very flat before, now dead flat. elm 7% MC, for bar counter top.

Roger the pharmacist very happy.

Ianab · March 26, 2024, 03:54:30 AM

Quote from: Brad_bb on March 22, 2024, 11:37:03 PMso I have to bring the block home and figure out how I'm going to flatten it.

For a one off, a manual router bridge will get the job done. A 24" x 24" block won't take long to do by hand. It's when you want to flatten multiple 12ft x 3 ft table tops, then you look at a dedicated machine or a CNC. My choice would be a planer blade for my swing mill, it's basically still a manual router bridge, but with a 13 hp router and a ~12" fly cutter. Turns my little sawmill into a "slabmiser". Loud and messy, but it makes things flat.

longtime lurker · March 26, 2024, 09:07:47 AM

I'd lean to a CNC machine. There's just so much versatility there, you can not just flatten a slab but you can carve pretty patterns into the slab, or do short run mouldings to match existing, or throw sheet material on it and cut out a kitchen if you wanted to.

I've never driven one, just seen them working. And I'm sure there's a learning curve with programming to do the fancy stuff. But I'm also sure it doesn't have to be us old fossils that learn it... when you have the gear it's not so hard to find the bright young men to drive it. Far easier than finding bright young men to do things the hard way that's for sure, cuz if they're bright enough then they know it's the hard way and they're bright enough to go work for someone with better equipment.

Then again I take a perverse kind of pride in being the kid that punches out big volumes with stone age tools. I was just reading the other day that there's a resurgence of obsidian scalpels for surgery because it's actually sharper than steel... some stone age tools are still best for the job if you know how to drive them

tule peak timber · March 26, 2024, 11:57:29 AM

I'm going to probe both Shopsaber and Shopbot to see what they have to say. This morning, I at least figured out where it might go in the shop and stay clean and facilitate loading of heavy slabs. There is actually a list of smaller thigs I want to pursue with an additional helper, widgets so to speak.