Working with large stock; jointer alternative?

[astutesolutions]

I want to take the piece of lumber shown here:

, (it's a

5.5x11.5 piece) and split it into two 2.75x11.5 (probably only 2.5 after sawing) and gluing them together to make a 23 inch wide board to hold a TV. I don't have a massive bandsaw so I was considering making two passes with the tablesaw and making the final cut with a sawzall. I can use my surface planer to finish the two pieces up. My questions are:

1) Is there a better way to split this sucker

2) If one is not blessed with a jointer, any suggestions as to getting true edges?

For #2, I was thinking about attaching a small strip of wood to it as a guide through the TS and then sand down the saw marks.

FWIW, the tools I do have that might help are a surface planer, large router, TS, sawzall, belt sander. Also, its white pine. I have another piece just like this one.

Thanks. Jeff

[Duane Bozarth]

What you need is a plane. W/ pine, you can surface this puppy just fine w/ a hand plane and a sharp blade.

[mjwallace]

Jeff:

You can join edges with a router. See woodshop demos -

's a couple of pages on how to do that. Also check out Pat Warner's pages, there might be something there as well -

then that - using a joiner plane. Split the piece in two (TS probably the best way here), then take the two edges of the cut, turn them up and plane across both of them at the same time. Any variations on the edges will be mirrored in the other piece. Should work well. Google the solution I described and you should find a number of hits.

MJ Wallace

[John Girouard]

I don't see anything wrong with your proposed approach. To answer question #2, check out the January/February 2005 issue of Fine Woodworking (#175) where they detail how to build a planer sled. They used to have a video up on their site, but it looks like it recently got taken down. Perhaps google cache will be kind to you:

If you can't get the video any longer, perhaps we can figure out a way that I can get it to you, as I've saved the QT version.

-John

[Mike in Idaho]

A word of warning on splitting this puppy on your tablesaw. Be VERY careful as you're passing it over the blade. I did this one time on my

2HP (real, not crapsman "rated") tablesaw and the wood pinched my blade and before I could tell what had happened white smoke was coming out of the back of my tablesaw. Now it ended up being a burned out belt (link belt, it melted and spewed plastic crap all over my motor, and inside of the tablesaw as well, it was a PAIN to clean up!). A good splitting knife might help (I didn't have one low enough to fit in the kerf of the wood left by the blade (mine sits higher than the blade)).

Go easy and listen for any problems and be prepared to hit the off button quickly. And stay back from the piece so you don't get kickback either (though it would take a lot of umph to get that monster thrown, but if it managed to get thrown it would be a death stick at that point).

Good luck, Mike

[BillyBob]

All of the answers have focused on jointing and planing the resultant pieces. Personally, I think your biggest problem is splitting the sucker. The way I read your description, you are basically trying to resaw an 11.5 inch wide board along the 11.5 inch width into two boards. I think attacking this with a table saw is really dicey. Even at that, aren't you going to need a cutting stroke length of 8.5" after butchering it with the table saw (11.5 inchdes minus 3")? Does your sawzall have that capability? This is a job for a decent sized bandsaw. I think you are trying to go to an awful lot of work just to have two pieces to glue together. Why not cut it the other way (5.5") and glue five pieces together? For that matter, just go buy some 3/4" S2S stock from the lumberyard and glue it together.

Bob

[Duane Bozarth]

Oh, come now, BillyBob--what you goin' and gettin' practical on us now for? :)

Tage Frid would just get out the bow saw. A sharp rip handsaw would also make quick work of a piece of pine.

[BillyBob]

I've got this relic handsaw hanging on my pegboard that I thought about suggesting. I declined because I could picture me trying it and sweating like a horse, only ending up with two mirrored pieces that were 2 1/2" thick at one end and 1 1/2" at the other. If one doesn't have a good handsaw, its going to cost a lot more money than a few board feet of S2S pine. :-)

Bob

[astutesolutions]

Bob, thats a good point. I do have a long sawzall blade, but I'm not sure if it extends past 8.5" or not. I think its between 7 and 9 inches. Wonder if I can buy one that long. Otherwise, I could always use a handsaw as your earlier post suggested.

The multiple piece approach would work, but its more work than I'd like. If I had a jointer it wouldn't be as much work, but truing the edges up will be my biggest headache I fear.

Thanks to all who posted responses.

MJ's post reminded me that I have a bosch power plane. Its about 3" wide so, it may work well for this application. Not as good as a jointer, but decent enough I hope.

Jeff

[Lawrence Wasserman]

I would cut through from both sides with the table saw and just use a hand saw to cut out the center. If the piece is only 11.5 inches long it really doesn't even matter if it already has a straight edge to run against the fence or not. It should be be in contact with the fence for the whole cut so the cut edge will be straight enough to work with. Use a hand plane to plane down the thicker section where it was cut with the hand saw, and do any finish jointed of that edge should it be necessary. Then glue up, and trim to finshed size afterwards.

[A.M. Wood]

Carefully cut from one side using the Table Saw.

Make the through cut with a sharp hand saw using the groove as a guide.

Alternatively,

Buy one of those

should fit on the 11.5 piece :)

[glensmith]

Hi,

I have split lots of 12" material using your proposed method. You did not say how long it was. If it is easy to handle then use the table saw to cut a 3" kerf in each edge. The sawsall will work but use a new very course blade. I would stand the piece of end to let gravity help. I sometimes hung 20lbs on the sawsall to help.- much easier on the arms. Watch the far side for to blade wander.

What I found easier and faster was to kerf it with a skill saw(if to large to table saw) and then rent a 16-1/2" Makita circular timber saw (big skill saw) from home depot to cut the remainder. The large blade sounds hard to handle but it is not. Take a few passes cutting under 2" each time.

[astutesolutions]

Good to know its been done that way. Its about 4 feet long (you can see it in the link at the top).

Thanks to eveyone who responded.

I'll try to post results once I take a shot at it.

[Toller]

I have done what you are thinking about; cutting on a table and and cleaning the web out with a sawsall. It is much harder than it looks. Getting the the sawsall to to go straight down the middle without gouging the sides is a problem. I will not be doing it again...

As others have said, you can joint with a router, or with a hand plane for that matter; but neither is easy. Since the wood obviously will not bend to conform to inperfections, you had better do a great job or you will see it as gaps in the glue joint. Perhaps that will not matter to your project.

I guess if it were me, I would save that piece of wood and buy the right stuff. (or borrow some time on the right equipment.)

[Duane Bozarth]

...

See my other response... :)

[Luigi Zanasi]

On Wed, 19 Oct 2005 09:51:33 -0500, Duane Bozarth scribbled:

Let's not forget the hand rip saw for ripping the wood instead of a sawzall which is likely wander all over the place (or a lot more than a handsaw anyway).

Luigi Replace "nonet" with "yukonomics" for real email address

[The Davenport's]

I've seen Sawzall blades up to 12" long...demo blades, but what the hell, a fine finish isn't what you're looking for here.

Mike

[bridger]

here's how:

go get a way longer sawzall blade than you need. they make them, you'll just have to look. kerf the timber both sides with skilsaw as described.get the sawblade started in the cut and have your assistant guide the backside with a block of hardwood with a sawkerf in it. think bottom guides on a bandsaw.

[bridger]

they're available quite a bit longer than that.

[BillyBob]

All of this for a piece of pine????

Bob