Comments on flattening long rough stock before planer please

[No]

OK - Thanks for everyone's input on getting my arse in gear on buying rough stock for my next project.

I have a desire to use single boards about 13 foot long for parts of my wainscoting project. (Horizontal rails). My jointer is only 72" long. Neaner. Anyway - I will cut the boards about an inch or so bigger than my final length setup some infeed and outfeed support and get a helper and hope for the best. I am starting with 4/4 stock, jointing one face, planing then jointing one edge and ripping to width.

My questions Is the order correct? Cut to close length, face joint, plane, edge, rip? Or should I edge joint, rip, face joint plane? The latter will have me running less material through the jointer and planer, I suppose, but how can I be guaranteed a square edge? Seems if I did do the latter I would rip a bit wide then visit the jointer again to ensure a square edge. Any advantage to this?

OK another question - My experience with jointing and planing has been limited to nothing longer that 6' or 8'. When working with that long of a stock it appears that you may need to remove a lot of material in a badly twisted or bowed board before you get it flat. My stock looked pretty good at the mill I bough it from but I would suspect even a very slight unnoticeable bow would be shown by a decent jointer. I worried by the time I got the board flat on one side I would not have enough stock left to make my final thickness. So, would I be better off cutting my long rails in half and then joining them back together when I build the rails for the wainscoting?

Make sense?

I wont ask for comments on jointing techniques for long boards. I got them searching via google groups. but if anyone has any wisdom they would like to add here feel free.

[fredfighter]

Yes. Before you rip you want at least one flat face and one edge flat and square to that face. You can rip to width before you plane the other face if you wish.

[Leon]

Well, sorta. It would be more pratical to cut the boards so that you alone handle the wood when running them through the jointer. Boards 13' long are too long to expect good results. If you insist you should build infeed and out feed tables for the planer and those table should absolutely be co-planar with their counter parts. You should face joint first so that you have a flat surface to reference against the jointer fence when you straighten the edge. The fence is not necessary when flattening the face. From there you can either plane or edge joint next.

Exactly. the longer the board the more you will have to remove. Better to cut the board as short a possible for the project to minimize the possibility of loosing more that you want. Again even with a flat board face planing a board 13' long is going to be pretty darn hard if not impossible.

My stock looked pretty good

YES

YES

[Joe Tylicki]

Since the wainscotting will be nailed flat to the wall and not part of a piece of furniture, have you considered "pressing the warp" out of the stock when jointing it. You'd lose less material and it really doesn't matter how flat the board is if it will be nailed to a wall, which more than likely is not flat either.

You could also just nix face jointing entirely and run it through the planer as is. You probably still want to edge joint it, but that shouldn't be too tough. Again, with nailing it flat to the wall, you can take out any bend the jointer is too short to flatten.

[dadiOH]

HOORAY! Common sense is a wonderful thing :)

[No]

Thanks - I was thinking that skipping the face jointing may be the right answer. A bow or slight twist should be able to flatten out upon install. Just run the stock through the planner. This is, of course, assuming consistent thickness, or close to it. Additionally. I'm thinking also if I can rip close to my needed size then I would be fighting less to get the boards flat-ish. Then edge joint and rip to final width.