I have built a frame as part of a chest of drawers. Two of the pieces of wood are not level. Can anyone suggest a good way of levelling them? I am thinking about using a planer (I am not very good with a hand one
- is a power planer harder to use?) or a belt sander to sand down the protruding piece to the right height. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
I'd use a sander.
Definitely scraper time.
Got a friend who has a wide belt sander like a Performax? If not, try a local cabinet shop and see if they would run it for you. WB sanders really fix these kinds of problems.
It'd help if you gave a little more information. What is causing them to be not even? Have you glued it already? If not and it's a mortice and tenon type of joint you can tweak the alignment by adding a piece of veneer to one side of the tenon and shaving a bit off the other side. If it's already glued up then you don't have any choice but to sand or plane it flush.
-Leuf
Unfortunatelt it is already glued - it was a biscuit join that I messed up and didn't realize until after it was glued. I learnt my lesson about dry assembly! Thanks everyone for all your advice - I am stuck with sanding with an orbital sander as that is all I have. I guess it will be a long afternoon!
It depends on how mych you are out. A ROS tends to round over an edge because of the soft sanding pad. If the offending ledge is 1/32 or more it's not going to work very well. What you really want to do is create a ramp rather than a roundover. A card scraper it pretty effective for a small ramp, A hand plane is really the right tool for a crating a large ramp.
What you really want to do here is shape you stock. Most sanders are best at smoothing and actually do a poor job of flattening (the excepting being something like a Performax thickness sander).
If you must sand, start at a high course grit and sand up to, but resist the temptation to sand over the line. Only when you are done flattening and have moved up to finer grits, should you cross over the line.
-Steve
Well, in that case I would scrap the job. Its not right and never will be. As we say in the business...."sometimes you just have to rip it apart".
If it's real bad any chance you can use a thin pull saw (e.g., Japanese saw) to cut all the joints apart on that side and then redo the biscuit joints? If done carefully I'd think you could reuse the parts with little loss of width to side grain piece. Worse case you make one new piece...
One reason I mention this is that you might end up with a gap between the face frame and carcass if you simply flatten the face side...
John
You're joking right? Tongue in cheek? I think knowing how to correct things like this that distinguishes a real craftsman.
Dude, DON"T sand it. As C&S posted it will round your stock at the edges.
Woodcraft, Wood Workers Supply and Rockler (I have all three local to me, G-L-O-A-T) all three sell cabinet scrapers. This IMHO is the tool for the job.
If you don't have a Woodcraft or Rockler near you. Order one and wait for it to arrive.
Put a _chainsaw_ through it if you have to, and that's the best and most accurate saw you have. If the piece is big, and you're making the frame before you're making all the parts that fit around it, then you can almost always afford to lose a saw kerf off the overall width.
Biscuiting tip - don't use the fence. If you can arrange this, and the height adjustment is right, then lay both things face down on a flat bench and use the big solid face of the biscuit jointer as the guide, not the narrow wobbly fence.
You are either using your biscuit jointer incorrectly or it's time for a new one.
maybe I'm not reading the message correctly, so, I'll put it this way
- If he has made an error that now leaves him in a position that he must modify the work to compensate for the error, then I'd take it apart, start over.
Remind me never to work with you :)
If I had to start over every time I screwed something up I'd still be on my first project.
-Leuf
HA!......my two boys (28 & 26) would say "right Leuf, right"
I've learned that it is always better to start over. 45's that are no longer 45. Square cuts that are no longer square. One screw-up can have lingering consequences and require that out of spec adjustments. Improvising is accepted.
I provide two examples; one which I consider acceptable improvising and the other I feel is a "take apart"
A framer is building a gable dormer. The side wall height is 79" and he builds the right hand wall first. When he goes to build the left hand wall he messes up and cuts the studs 73" instead of 74.5". In this case he can simply add an additional top plate to make up the error. This is an acceptable course.
The same framer building a dormer messes up and has the left wall forward of the right wall by 1.5". He finds his mistake that he went to the wrong side of his mark when snapping a line. If this framer continues his work, everything about the dormer will be wrong as it will be out-of-square. It will cause other problems requiring improviisation and maybe the dormer will never come together correctly.
I've built a lot of stairs and one thing that I've learned is that exactness from the start makes everything else that much smoother. I strive for perfection.
Cheers, J
One technique I've found effective with the ROS is to hold the sander at a slight angle. This takes some practice as it is really unstable and wants to run off on you. But if you hold it with two hands and keep your arms steady, and move side to side just by shifting your weight from one leg to the other I've gotten good results. It avoids the rounding over problem as you're making more contact at the center. It does tend to leave more swirlies this way, so finish up with the sander flat.
-Leuf
CoG is just better placed for guiding it from the face, instead of the fence. Even though it's quite a good fence, it's still overhung.
I'm 30 and tell them my dad's worse than their dad.
-Leuf
My hand plane (no electric planes then)teqnique in the early days of starting woodworking was none existent,so I used to clamp the plane in a worktop bench vice upside down and set the planes blade for minmium cut then glide the wood across,I did wear welders gloves though,cant be too carefull. :-)
oops! I see now your trying to plane/sand a wide piece. ;-)
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