The value of a planer (a story).

[T. Hetrick]

The following is the story of a newbee to wood working, so take it as you may.

Want cheap nice wood to play with and learn with? Get a power thickness planer. I got very bored playing with chunks of pine and wanted to learn how to work with hardwoods. Chance came to save me at the local Habitat for Humanity Re-Store, which for those of you that don't know is like the love child between Home Depot and Goodwill, but more expensive. That day they were selling off all the junk that had been building up un their back lot. Low and behold there was a entire pallet of 3/4" x 2.5" white oak hard wood flooring that from the looks of it had been sitting out in the weather for about a year. So I buy it...for about $50. As it turns out there is about 400sf of flooring in a pallet of what I got about 1/4 will be firewood 1/4 will be new flooring for the atic and the rest is perfect for messing around with. The stuff on the outside of the pile took the brunt of the weather. But to really use this stuff I had to get a planer to take the ridges off the bottoms of the boards. So now that I have the planer I am looking for some more wood to turn into sawdust, so one day I am cruising CraigsList when I see an ad for rough cut red oak at 5$ a board. Turns out it's some old guy out in the country that is clearing out his shed, and he has had it stacked for drying for a few years. Me a a buddy go to pick it up and get about 14 boards ranging from about 4" to 10" in width. But both of us are suspicious that it is NOT red oak after we start driving away. Sure enough after I get home I put a chunk through the planer it turns out to be cherry! I'm pretty sure I have paid for my $200 Ryobi planer a few times over already.

Todd

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Damn, he screwed you. I'd take it back and demand he give you the oak you bought.

BTW, you suck!

[charlie b]

You do understand that the planer gets two opposite surfaces parallel and to some specific distance between them. But it won't make it flat and it won't make one edge straight

So - if what you fed into the planer was cupped twisted or crooked

Then what comes ot of the planer is still cupped twisted or crooked

To get a board that isn't flat flat you need a joiner

To get one edge straight and square to a face you need a joiner (ok so you can do that with a table saw and a jig)

OH - and 400sf @ 3/4" thickness comes to 300 bf. At $50 for the lot you got a good deal - $0.17/bf.

You Suck.

charlie b

[CW]

Or a hand plane.

Or a hand plane.

[Andy Dingley]

Reasonable skill with a thickness planer will take out cupping (i.e. don't just wind the handle right down and try to squash the board flat).

Twisted boards are generally best avoided anyway. They're either reaction wood or they're badly dried. Good timber isn't _meant_ to twist (it is meant to cup, that's just wood for you). If I have twist in a board that I can't take out by planing it, then I either rip the board smaller until I can, or it goes for scrap anyway.

[charlie b]

Yet another Neander / Follower of Roy heard from.

But it is a point worth noting - hand tools will often get the job done quicker and quieter than a Tailed Beast. And lets face it, few here do stock prep on 200 or 300 bf at a time. And unless it was all going to be used shortly after milling, it's likely to need some more stock prep just before it is used.

Besides, there is a certain pleasure hearing the swoosh as a long hand plane passes over the edge of a board, the shavings getting longer and longer as the edge comes flat - and straight - and, hopefully, square to the adjacent face of the board. No dust collector nor ear protection necessary.

charlie b

[T. Hetrick]

I hear ya. Anything that is too short is fire wood, the curved,cupped and bowed stuff is for the atic floor. The "ridges" I am taking off with the thickness planer are the ridges milled into the bottom of each plank by the mfg. There is quite a bit of waste. After I clean it all up I get a 5/8"x1-7/8" peice of clean white oak. it's a lot of work, but it teaches me a lot about my tools.

Todd

[nautilus]

I completely agree! Sometimes, my stock gets a little bit thinner than desired, just because I couldn't resist my self to do another pleasant "swoosh"!

Also, the surface quality difference is preety noticeable many times... I just preffer to use a good no 7.

Best! Nautilus

charlie b ha escrito:

[Andy Dingley]

A planer isn't a Tailed Beast, it's a fixed machine.

Now I'm all for the hand tools vs. powered hand tools debate, but there's a time when a few HP and a few cwt. of cast iron gets the job done in a way that's simply not going to happen by hand.