Has anyone here use or have a Woodhaven planing sled? If so do you like it? I'm having several wide slabs mostly maple that cup and are sitting in my inventory not selling. I was thinking about trying to see it works selling if I flatten them. I really don't want to get into the wood working part but money is sitting there and not selling. I know you can build a sled but this one looks nice.
I like the looks of that one. Much smoother operation than my home made one. I'm going to bookmark their site for future reference.
Looks to be accurate and easy too set up. affordable price for what it will achieve. Pay for itself in no time. Got me interested.
Thanks for posting.
Remill it.
You have one of the biggest and baddest jointers made, a sawmill. Put the offending slab, with the hump up, back on the mill, level the twist best as you can, and skim cut it flat. Slice the hump and twist right off. The board will be as flat as if it just came off the mill originally. Them flip it over and do it again. The cut on the opposite side isn't really needed, but I like to do it to make it feed better through the planer.
I like the first cut to be just a tad under the original thickness of the board. For example, I cut my slabs to 2 3/8" thick, so when I remill it, I set the band to 2 1/4" above the bed. This should pretty much clean up the whole face. Then I flip the board and remill to 2 1/8". The board will then plane easily because its flat again. Of course, if the cup or especially twist is real bad, the mill will slice off a lot of wood. Sometimes it's a losing situation, so I'll crosscut the slab in half, to get a flatter board, then remill it.
I remill a quite few slabs, its one of the reasons I tell customers that they are more expensive, they get to ride the sawmill twice.
Yes Robert you can do it that way, ladylake suggested that to me awhile back. I going to try that also. But I hope to have my slabber running soon and on those slabs will be too wide for my mill. Not sure how it would work putting cup slabs back on a chainsaw mill. Maybe Seaman or someone with a slabber can let us know.
Jake at Turbo Saw called me yesterday about a planer for that mill but since I only have the slabber on the mill it will cost a good bit because I would have to buy the swing blade for it, I don't have any desire for a swing blade.
123MaxBars has a video he posted under Woodworking using the Woodhaven Planer Sled.
My sawmill is also my slab flattening device. If the slab is too wide for the mill, I never cut it in the first place :).
Quote from: Savannahdan on April 02, 2017, 07:53:25 AM
123MaxBars has a video he posted under Woodworking using the Woodhaven Planer Sled.
I looked and he has several videos. Couldn't see that one.
His video is under "router sled". I have the 51" model but haven't had a chance to use it. Have other projects that got moved in its place including repairing my Husqvarna chainsaw and then completing some Alaskan mill cuts. I do like the build of the Woodhaven sled.
I made one out of a harbor freight pick up headache rack I had taking up roomin shop. It's perfect working height. Put a laminate Clad door I had on top of it and is perfect height to do 3" slabs. I have to shim up 2" ones by placing uni strut under them.