Advice on Milling Lumber

[ChicagoNewGuy]

Hello everyone,
I'm hoping for some advice.  I find milling lumber to be extremely difficult and I'm wondering if I'm biting off more than my tools can chew.  I have a stock Dewalt D735 planer and an old Craftsman 6" jointer with 18" long infeed and outfeed tables.  Many years ago, I bought gallons and gallons of rough walnut from a guy that was moving, the boards are 12" x 1 1/4" x 10'. A couple of years ago I made my first project with this lumber, a simple 20"x40" vanity.  I cut the boards to length and then ripped them down to 5" wide, so they would fit in my jointer.  By the end of it, I had milled the 1 1/4" boards down to 7/8" thick.  It was absolute torture.  My jointing produced boards that were fatter in the middle and using the planer was like pulling teeth, pushing and pulling the boards through at the end to keep them from getting stuck and burning.  It made me hate my workshop for a while.  I think a lot of my issue was not having long enough infeed/outfeed tables.  Well now I'm about to embark on another adventure with this walnut and I need to create a 24"x70" slab as part of a piece of furniture I'm going to take a shot at.  Part of me just wants to go out and buy some veneered plywood but I have all this freaking walnut that I want to use up.  Today I got started by cutting a couple of boards to length and ripping them down to 6" wide.  I started face jointing one of them and I'm realizing this is never going to work, it feels like it is going to be exponentially worse than the bathroom vanity. 

Any advice on how to make this less painful? 

• Is my issue not enough infeed and outfeed space?  I feel like guys on YouTube just send 8ft boards through their machines and catch them on the other side no sweat.  This would be a lot of effort for me and my shop is small.  Are rollers as good as extension tables?
• Are my tools too small, am I expecting too much from them?
• Instead of trying to mill (4) 6" x 70" boards should I try a brick pattern and mill up a bunch of 6"x24" boards?  Or would chopping up these long beautiful walnut boards into tiny pieces be sacrilegious?
• Would my life be easier if I re-sawed the lumber in half to 5/8 thick boards that might be easier to handle?

I am throwing random stuff out at this point; any advice would be appreciated!
Thanks,
Imran

 

[ChuckM]

I sold my jointer years ago (space now used for my Kapex), and have since used a technique like this:


You can find other more sophisticated sleds online (one example below).

This technique handles a wide board (12" to 13") with ease.

Shims:http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?p=66917&cat=1,43456

 

[aufinger]

The total bed is 18"? General rule of thumb is 2x bed, so you can probably realistically do 3' boards or so. So, yeah that seems under-sized for what you're doing.

You might be better off face jointing on your planer w/ a sled and shims. Then square up the edge on a table saw. Lots of YouTube videos on this.

Or just find someone to do the milling for you. Either a buddy or hardwood retailer/mill.

 

[Gregor]

I would use a router sled for an initial flatten pass, random search result to illustrate the concept:

 

[kevinculle]

While shorter jointer tables do present limitations it is most important to first make sure your jointer is set up as accurately as possible.  The tables must be reasonably flat (say within 0.01"/0.3mm) and coplanar, with the outfeed table plane matching the OD of the cutterhead across it's width.  The fence must be precisely square to the tables for milling square stock. 

Technique on the jointer is also important..if the board has lengthwise warp start with the concave side down and take short passes at each end swapping end to end and working toward the center.  This will get you to a flat reference side with less stock removal than taking multiple full length passes.

Your DW735 is fully capable if you don't mind listening to the howl (through ear protection of course) and if you want to make it truly capable a Byrd head provides enormous benefits in noise reduction and minimizing blade maintenance.  In your situation though I would first invest in a longer bed jointer and perhaps step up to 8" width.  There are plenty of older Delta and Powermatic jointers available for relatively cheap prices needing only some TLC and bearings to be superior to most new machines sold today.  See this website for all you need to know:
http://www.owwm.org/

 

[Michael Kellough]

As Kevin says the jointer must be correctly setup to produce good results. This can be difficult or even impossible with lower quality equipment.

You can bypass problems with the jointer with the methods Chuck and Gregor posted.

Another option is the one you brought up, buying some stock that is more suitable for the scale of the project. That nice old ten foot long 6/4 x 12” walnut should be used for large tables. Consider selling some to buy a better jointer or trading for suitable stock.

 

[Mike Goetzke]

I'm a serious hobbyist that built all the cabinets for our kitchen remodel few years ago. I like milling my own lumber and started out with a 6" jointer and the same DeWalt planer you have. For the kitchen job I justified buying an 8" jointer and 13" floor standing planer. This was quite an upgrade but I also produced nicely sized flat lumber with tools similar to yours.

Just few thoughts:

- Working rough sawn lumber don't first cut to size. Leave maybe 3" to 4" (or more) on the length and 1/2" to 1" on the width and cut to size later.

- You shouldn't have to push & pull lumber through the planer. The drive rollers should do that. Are you hogging off to much per pass or does your planer drive wheels need cleaning? maintenance? new blades?

- You jointer should flatten the board across the entire width. Again, are the blades properly set up and sharp? Technique?

(I'm in the Chicago area - if all fails I'll take that walnut off your hands. [big grin])

Mike

 

[Cheese]

I would use a router sled for an initial flatten pass, random search result to illustrate the concept:

I like that approach. Use it for slabs & use it for rough sawn.  [smile]

 

[Michael Kellough]

If the op jointed both sides of the board before going to the planer, and the board was thicker in the middle, then he would have some difficulty feeding through the planer. I wouldn’t continue to use the jointer until it is adjusted to make boards flat.

 

[ChuckM]

The router sled method is great for big slabs, but a poor approach for day-to-day planing jobs for two reasons: It is slow, and it is very dusty. Trust me, it will take forever to joint half a dozen 8"x 8' boards, both faces that way.

Someone correctly pointed out the importance of skills in using the jointer (assuming it is properly tuned up to start with). Cupped boards are the easiest to handle, but not a twisted one. This is one way to do it (the balancing method):

Another almost fool-proof method (for shorter twisted boards) is to support the trailing high corner with shavings or paper towel. Or, use a handplane to knock off the high points first.

It is true that the easiest and usually also the more pricey route is to go buy milled stock for your projects. The choices of thickness and grain patterns may be limited by what vendors carry. However, that may be the best way to go if you find stock milling too much work, and would rather spend time on other parts of the projects.

Caution: Whether you buy or mill your own stock, you should use it as soon as practicable as wood moves, and depending on your shop conditions, the boards could go "out of shape" as they react to changes in humidity.

 

[cpw]

The DW735 should be able to handle this easily, but you will get better results with the folding infeed/outfeed table attachments.  When I did my kitchen with several hundred bf of cherry it was a worthy upgrade.  I did all that jointing with a RIDGID 6" jointer, with a 45" bed.  I mostly did things that were in the 4' range, with some 6' and very few 8' boards.  The 8' boards were more challenging, but doable.  It sounds like with 18" long beds, maybe you have a benchtop unit?  I would certainly want something floor standing with sufficient mass.

 

[ChicagoNewGuy]

Thanks Everyone,
The tools are well maintained and sharp so I think I'm going to try the planer sled first.  See how that goes and then consider upgrading to a spiral cutter in the planer. 
Thanks for all the feedback, truly appreciate this forum.
I'll keep you guys posted.

 

[aufinger]

Kevin has a good point. First question should be how it performs on shorter boards? If you can get flat boards up to 3 feet or so, then I'd say the planer and operator are working well. If not, might want to address that.

You can run longer boards on a jointer with a helper or careful aligned stands. An upper body workout pressing the board into the outfeed table to maintain contact works too.  ;D

 

[Alanbach]

To me this sounds like most of your issues start and end with your jointer. Are you jointing both faces or only one? You should only be jointing one. Are you using paddles to keep consistent contact between the work and the jointer on both sides of the blade? Do you have supports that can help you keep the work from teeter tottering as long pieces go through your short jointer? If the first surface comes off the jointer without one flat face as a reference face for the planer then the struggle will continue. Fix that and I think you fix your problem. I assume that when you talked about the jointer producing boards that were thicker in the middle you were talking about along the length. If that is the case then planing would be torture because the planer is trying to duplicate the reference face.

 

[grbmds]

For years I used 6” Rockwell jointer with a short bed. In addition there was no way to adjust the outfeed table. Because of this I could never get the jointer set up properly and the results were always less than desirable. The indeed and outfeed tables must be set properly as well as the cutters. I would suggest searching you tube for a good video on jointer setup, follow that process and, if after that, you don’t get any better results the jointer is the problem.

Also as at least one other responder suggested, only one side should be face jointed and the other side flattened parallel on the planer. Even if the first side isn’t completely flat you should still have lees problems running the board through planer.

 

[sancho57]

I was looking at jointer techniques on you tube etc last night .

I found this one by Charles Nell. It was the most informative one i found with some tips that may help you.
You never said what tools were available for you to use so here is what Id do

Use your TS 55 w a guide rail to joint the timber, then use your domino for glue up strengthening and aligning the joints, your RO 150 in rotex mode with a hard pad to rough sand the surfaces flat then go over it with either your RO150 in random mode to finish sand or your ETS 150/3 to finish sand. Your MFT with TS55 to square the timbers up.
This type of work seems like what festools are good at.

Heres the video by Charles Nell on setting up ad using a jointer along with some good tips

 

[ear3]

The phenomenon you're describing, where boards sent through the planer end up fatter in the middle and you're struggling a lot with pulling them through sounds like what happens when you try to pass a bowed or twisted board through a planer -- meaning there must be something up with your jointer.  Do you have straightedges or other reference tools to confirm that the wood coming off your jointer is truly flat?

As far as planer is maintenance is concerned, it helps to keep the planer bed waxed to facilitate wood moving through.  And don't underestimate how short the life span is on those planer knives.  I used the stock blades when I first got my 735, and found that they dulled considerably after only a single planing session.  So I switched over to the Byrd Shelix cutterhead, and couldn't be happier with it.  The spiral cutterhead produces a finer cut, stays sharp a loooong time, and dramatically cuts down on the noise from the machine.

If your jointer is wonky you can still make do.  I process a lot of lumber through my 735, but I don't have space for a jointer so I now work with hand planes to joint a flat reference face for the planer.  It's actually pretty quick once you get the hang of it.  You can also work with a power planer to get the same results, though there's more of a risk in removing too much wood.

Thanks Everyone,
The tools are well maintained and sharp so I think I'm going to try the planer sled first.  See how that goes and then consider upgrading to a spiral cutter in the planer. 
Thanks for all the feedback, truly appreciate this forum.
I'll keep you guys posted.

 

[Michael Kellough]

My jointer is an ancient short bed 6” Delta. Even though it is well adjusted it is too difficult to get something over 6 feet long truly straight and flat because the infeed and outfeed tables are so short. For longer stuff I use a hand plane (cordless power plane if the stock is badly twisted) to prepare for the planer by knocking down the obvious high spots.

I’ve never built a proper sled but have used a piece of mdf (with taped in place shims and a couple screws for the push end) to support shorter twisted boards that were too wide for the jointer.

The goal is to get one side flat enough to be the bed side when run through the planer. On that first pass you may need to help push/pull the board through.

On a long badly twisted board it’s almost not worth the effort since the diagonally opposite corners will be so thin once you mill the twist out but at least what’s left will take the snipe and preserve the rest of the surface.

 

[Stephen B]

Re jointer.

I have an Australian distributed  Carbatec  8" long bed jointer which I suspect comes out of the same Taiwan factory as many brands sold in NA.

I am no expert, but as a guide I find my  greatest accuracy in jointing is achieved when I dial the blades towards a minimum cutting height. I use 1-3 mm to get the board in the 'ball park' then head for less than 1mm for fine tuning.

 

[ChicagoNewGuy]

Hello Everyone,
Thanks for all of the advice and apologies for not posting an update sooner.  I had a lot of work to do and I don't get as much time as I'd like in the shop.  I was able to take a lot of the info folks provided and really improve my milling results.  Mainly, I skipped the jointer and went straight to the planer to flatten both sides of these wide long boards.  In my planer, I built longer infeed/outfeed tables, changed the blades, and cleaned the rollers (cleaning the rollers made a huge difference).  I also built a massive sled with leveling bars.  I love my planer now, I hate setting it up, but I love using it.  Once these blades wear out, I'll probably look at upgrading to a Helix cutter head.
(Sorry about the upside down pics, they look fine on my machine)

[attachimg=1]
[attachimg=2]

Really appreciate all the input everyone provided.  This community has always been great about helping me improve my skills and keep my fingers.

Thanks again.