In the latest fine woodworking there is an intersting article (to me) by Rob
Hare on flattening large panels whether they are glued up or the one he is
working on for the article - one big ol' wide piece o' lumber!
Anyway, he uses winding sticks to mark irregularities and a power hand
planer to remove high spots. He then progresses to a belt sander and finer
grits of sandpaper, finishing with an orbital sander or finish sander. I
have used a belt sander similar to the way he uses the hand planer but it
takes a long time.
I wonder if anyone else has done this. I am sure that it works, it is just
that it is often times hard to guage the relative difficulty of an operation
by reading about it from someone who has done it for years.
Any comments?
I know, I know. Learn to use a hand plane, right? I am working on that
too.
Frank
"Frank Ketchum" <[email protected]> wrote:
>In the latest fine woodworking there is an intersting article (to me) by Rob
>Hare on flattening large panels whether they are glued up or the one he is
>working on for the article - one big ol' wide piece o' lumber!
>
>Anyway, he uses winding sticks to mark irregularities and a power hand
>planer to remove high spots. He then progresses to a belt sander and finer
>grits of sandpaper, finishing with an orbital sander or finish sander. I
>have used a belt sander similar to the way he uses the hand planer but it
>takes a long time.
I recently had to smooth out about 250 feet of 6"x8" timbers from a
bandsaw mill. I did one face of one 26' timber with a hand plane and
then bought a power planer. The tool is a wild beast and very hard to
control (also very hard to set up, but mind that you take whatever
time is needed to get it *perfect*). If you take a very fine cut and
just work back and forth over difficult spots (much like you would
scrub out a bow on a jointer), it's reasonably easy to use for rough
work. I still hand planed all my timbers after using the power planer
because it was faster than trying to get a smooth finish with the
power planer. A belt sander is an order of magnitude slower for
hogging down wood (and if you think how easy it is to mess up a board
with a belt sander, that gives you an idea of how quickly you can
create a disaster with a power planer). If you find yourself using a
belt sander to flatten large panels, then a power planer might be the
way to go, but the risk is considerable with expensive wood.
Ken Muldrew
[email protected]
(remove all letters after y in the alphabet)
On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 14:09:40 GMT, "Frank Ketchum"
<[email protected]> wrote:
>Learn to use a hand plane, right?
Yes. If you think that's hard, learning to use a hand-held power
planer is _far_ harder.
Frank Ketchum wrote:
> In the latest fine woodworking there is an intersting article (to me) by Rob
> Hare on flattening large panels whether they are glued up or the one he is
> working on for the article - one big ol' wide piece o' lumber!
>
> Anyway, he uses winding sticks to mark irregularities and a power hand
> planer to remove high spots. He then progresses to a belt sander and finer
> grits of sandpaper, finishing with an orbital sander or finish sander. I
> have used a belt sander similar to the way he uses the hand planer but it
> takes a long time.
>
> I wonder if anyone else has done this. I am sure that it works, it is just
> that it is often times hard to guage the relative difficulty of an operation
> by reading about it from someone who has done it for years.
>
> Any comments?
>
> I know, I know. Learn to use a hand plane, right? I am working on that
> too.
>
> Frank
>
My first thought on reading the article was that you must have a ton of
confidence in your abilities that you won't fuck^H^H*k over what must be
a pricey big honkin' chunk of wood. [Pardon my Cheneyism]. The article
was a good read. It would be fun to give it a try. Set up your planer
as stated (easing the blade corners I think is key) and have a go on
some old discard plank or whatever you have. Start with the blade up
(take a small bite) and adjust as you go along. Shouldn't take more
than a few months before you're pretty proficient.
mahalo,
jo4hn
"Frank Ketchum" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I know, I know. Learn to use a hand plane, right? I am working on that
> too.
I think you would be amazed at how effective a no. 8 jointer plane can be.
Bob