planing out defects

[5quarter]

So heres my trouble...Lumber comes off the saw with no defect (warp, crook, twist, bow etc...) and dries mostly flat and true, but themajority of boards have some minor defect. I have devised all kinds of oddball methods for squaring lumber, but it is incredibly time-consuming. I have a 4 post 12" planer setup with infeed/outfeed table which works great on perfect boards, but simply follows the defect on not-so-perfect boards. I can compensate for this in several ways, but I absolutely HATE doing it. Also, I should mention that I am a perfectionist when it comes to perfectly dimensioned boards. When I can lay a board down on a dead flat surface and have 100% contact, I am a happy camper. I can't stand it when I have to spend hours squaring up lumber before I can even begin building. Any tricks, tips or techniques that you guys could offer would be very helpful. Also, Is there an affordable machine, similar in principle to a jointer, that could give me one flat face on a board?

Thanks in advance.

Chet

[bedway]

Your best bet and most practical is a jointer. Ive been in woodworking for near 30 years and its one of the most depended on pc. of equipment in the shop. You can get 6 or 8" ones today that dont cost you an arm or a leg. Grizzly makes a decent 8" for not a fortune.

[Ianab]

Well you are right about planers, put a banana or a corkscrew in, and you get a smooth banana / corkscrew out.

A Jointer is your best option to get the first two surfaces flat and at 90%, then use your planer to true up the other side to match.

For boards bigger than a common jointer will handle you can build either a "planer sled" or a "router bridge" Not as practical for production work, but for doing a couple of special bigger boards they can work great.

A planer sled is a straight hunk of something flat and straight. You sit your banana board on it and shim under the high spots so the planer rollers don't push the board flat. You can use a blob of hot melt glue to hold the shims in place, and a lip on front of the sled keeps the board in place. Run the whole thing through the planer taking light passes until you have a perfect surface on top. Remove from sled, flip over and plane the other side to match.

A Router bridge lets you go bigger, and works better with weird grain and heavy figured wood. Basically you set up the wood on a table with rails on each side. A bridge goes between these, and you mount a router with a large flat cut bit in it. Now you can run the router up/down and side to side and machine off everything the router can reach. If you do it right you now have a completely flat surface, with a few swirly router marks that quickly sand or plane out. But the important part is that the surface is flat and true.

Now if you can invent an affordable and fast machine that makes perfect flat and true boards, you should make a fortune  ;D

Ian

[PC-Urban-Sawyer]

I used a router bridge to true up a workbench top...

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,43650.0.html

Herb

[5quarter]

bedway...thanks for the response. I use my jointer all the time on shorter, narrow stock, but the majority of the trouble comes from boards that are longer and wider than the jointer can handle. It is one of my favorite tools, but really not designed for truing face grain.

Ian...Have you been lurking over my shoulder in the shop?  ;D I use the sled tecnique whenever I need a dead flat board (which is roughly 98.714% of the time!) and have set up a 2 plane router frame a few times for leveling slabs. I have also devised a jig for my table saw to take out end twist on narrow boards and another jig to correct slight bows, again, in narrow stock. all are really time consuming and tedious. It takes alot of work and some amount of skill to produce good quality lumber, so it is depressing when you have to go through the effort of truing up each board after you've already put it so much time and energy to get it to that point.

   What I need is a machine with 15"  blades, operating on the same principle as a jointer, with tensioned outfeed rollers to keep the board moving and keep it flat to the outfeed plate. I can't imagine that such a tool doesn't exist. it doesn't seem any more or less difficult to build than any other shop tool. I'm not an engineer, but even I can understand the mechanics of how one might work. please tell me there's one for sale on ebay... ;D ;D

[Larry]

Its called an Oliver Strait-O-Planer.  They've been around for more than 50 years.  Usually have maybe 30 hp on the top head, 30 on the bottom, with a 10 hp for the feed.  Weight is probably 17,000 pounds.  We have a member over in Memphis that picked one up for $500 or so if I remember right.

Most times it is better to learn what causes warp and how to prevent it rather than try to correct it.  Bruce Hoadleys Understanding Wood is a good place to start.

[Steve_M]

Will a Logosol or some another 4-5 head machine do this job or do you still need a jointer to get true boards?

[scsmith42]

I have an Oliver, and also have a 16" Grizzly jointer with a power feeder attached (the rollers are above the outfeed table just shy of the head).  Both work, but the Oliver works faster and does both sides at the same time.

My Oliver sure cost a site bit more than $500.00 though, and you need some serious dust collection for it (as in 6000 cfm or more).