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My experience is pretty much in line with what you are proposing as long as the wood is fairly thick, maybe 1.5" or thicker. There is the persistent belief that the springs on a planer are strong enough to press the bend out of boards when planing them. I don't think that actually happens on thicker stock and for sure doesn't happen on bench top planers. So if you have precut your board to the length that you will be using and if that length is maybe 3' or less and if the board doesn't rock when the concave side is down, then the planer will remove the bow from the board. I use this technique all the time on wide stock which is too wide for my 8" jointer. If I ever get my 16" jointer up and running, then I won't have to use it so often. This does not work on my 20" planer for 1" stock although I could get it to work on my old bench top Ryobi using light cuts. The springs are too stiff. Ken
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possibly, I buy from a Amish sawmill that makes hardwood flooring and trim. I think the last time I paid about 1.20/board foot for 4/4 poplar, don't remember how much I paid for the 4/4 maple I bought but I'm pretty sure it was less than $2.00.
I noticed when he was loading the boards from the forklift into the truck that if he thought it was too bad he would put it aside.
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Whatever works for you is fine, but I'll stick with the conventional way because I know it works w/o fail. My personal experience trying to bypass face jointing has always yielded disappointing results, probably because I rarely work with stock thicker than 5/4 to begin with. Any twist or bow in a 4/4 board is replicated through the planer, even taking really light cuts. At least that's how it has been through the 3 planers I've owned. My solution was to get a wider jointer.
John
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There is a lumber yard here called Kettle Moraine Hardwoods.
On a Saturday morning or afternoon, the shop is full of people picking-out stock for all sorts of projects. The sales people will always ask, "do you want us to plane that for you?"
I asked once, "do you joint it first?" Nope, they told me, they haven't a jointer.
I asked if they don't just hand-back a thinner board w/ all the twist/bow still in it, and was told, "yes, if the board is twisted/bowed, it will still be twisted/bowed."
But that didn't explain the # of guys taking them up on the planning, there were quite a few guys that seemed proficient that were buying a decent amount of lumber, and having it planed.
The next couple of times I was visiting their showroom, I did notice that their rough stock is pretty darn uniform, there isn't a lot of twist or bow in that place. I believe they saw and dry all their own stock, so maybe they're picky about what they put out, I don't know.
Some time later, I took some rough red oak I had sourced and decided to plane it (Dewalt DW734) w/o jointing it first. I make a small cabinet out of the stuff. It wasn't perfectly flat, but it was certainly flatter than when I had started.
It is my feeling that stock that is pretty flat to begin with probably gets a little flatter each trip through the planer.
I think Ken really hit on it above. And that is, if the pressure rollers aren't capable of forcing the lumber all the way down to the table, it is getting a little flatter on that trip through the planer.
I do not currently have a jointer (again), but I do use a planer sled and can get stock very flat that way.
But I also have a powered planer (Ryobi) I can use to knock-off unusually high spots on a board and send it through the planer and I get very good results that way.
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Most of the lumber I buy is teak and mahogany. I always buy it planed and hand pick it for flaws, twist, bow, straightness, cupping, checking, density, grain and color. The cost is passed on to my clients, and it saves me considerable grief in my shop. Though I still sometimes get mahogany with unbelievable stress!
The first edge is always straightened using a Festool track saw. I have gone many years without a jointer, jointing on my table saw, but recently picked up an older 8" Powermatic.
Wood is good.
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Seldom do I have to *joint* a face before surfacing in a planer.
If it's cupped that bad, I usually rip it in half, then surface plane.
Steve
Mo.
I miss the days of using my dinghy with a girlfriend too. Zack Butler-4/18/24
The Revos apparently are designed to clamp railroad ties and pull together horrifically prepared joints
WaterlooMark 02/9/2020
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(05-01-2017, 03:50 PM)ez-duzit Wrote: The first edge is always straightened using a Festool track saw. I have gone many years without a jointer, jointing on my table saw, but recently picked up an older 8" Powermatic.
When I finally made a jig for straight-line ripping on the table saw, I started using that even though I had a jointer.
Just toss it on the jig, sight it up, push it through, done. Single pass, guaranteed straight every time.
I miss my jointer on occasion but not enough room in the shop.
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(05-01-2017, 01:49 PM)mad_planter Wrote: I noticed when he was loading the boards from the forklift into the truck that if he thought it was too bad he would put it aside.
That's where it starts. Sawing for grade produces a better quality board than sawing through and through. The boards are graded after that, improving odds of flat stock even more. Not like it once was, when it involved two men to flip and dog the cant. When it's easy, makes sense to saw for grade.
Better to follow the leader than the pack. Less to step in.
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About 35 years ago when I was fresh out of college (Industrial Education), my previous High School Woodworking teacher needed some surgery so I filled in for him for a couple months, during the day and also for night classes. His night woodworking class was more of a "open shop", I think there were only two of the people who were there to be educated the rest just came to use the machines. We had a lot of people who had "home sawed" their lumber and would bring in a pickup load to run thru the planer. I tried to explain how normally you plane a flat side, but they didn't care, just run it thru the planer. I wonder how much actually ever got used? I would have at least left it at 13/16 to have a little room for error.
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If you feed a planer a board shaped like a banana, it'll still be shaped like a banana when it comes out. It'll just be consistently thick along its length. There are ways to limit wasting the wood on the high ends of the banana (like crosscutting the board in half). Same for twisted boards.
Still Learning,
Allan Hill
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