Rough sawn boards

[thomastchoper]

Good afternoon,

From an old persimmon tree that came down in a storm, a local mill cut 6 rough sawn boards 8 feet x 6.5 inches x 3/4 inch. The boards are warped. The wood itself is highly figured.

The project I am contemplating requires flat 1/2 thick boards. One option is to use a Festool planer. Will the 650 do the job or will I need the larger, more powerful...and more expensive...850?

Tom

 

[jeffinsgf]

A hand held planer is not the best choice for the job at hand.  You need a stationary jointer and a thickness planer.  In my opinion, the best choice would be a European style over/under combination jointer/thickness planer.  A more budget conscious choice would be a 6 inch jointer and a "lunch box" portable planer.

A hand held can eventually produce a flat face, but it has no way to reference the second face parallel to the first.

 

[Toller]

How big do you need your wood?

You flatten wood using a jointer to take off the high spots on each side.  If the high spots are more than 1/4" than you are out of luck.  If it is noticeably warped then it is almost certainly more than 1/4" unless you need 1' long boards.

BTW I clamped a warped piece of walnut with reverse bend to an I beam for 1 year and it didn't unwarp at all; so don't even think of that.

 

[polarsea1]

Before you surface the boards cut them a little longer than the length you'll actually need then you'll be able to flatten them without losing as much material. Surface planer, jointer or a hand plane are better than a hand held planer.

 

[bhendrix]

You may be able to craft a planer sled as illustrated in the following FWW video:

http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=5245

 

[PaulMarcel]

It seems that the boards are relatively green unless they were sawn a year ago.  I'm also assuming they weren't kiln dried by the sawyer.

I think what I would try is to flatten them with steam.  Pick the more boring board.  (BTW, I'm jealous of the boards, but I'll get over it when you post project pictures   Put it in a steam box.  Over-bend the warps/cups slightly.  Clamp down to a stable flat surface with a board on top (so the Persimmon board is in the middle of the sandwich).  Put breather mesh on both sides of the Persimmon board so it can dry slowly after steaming.  Leave clamped for a couple days.

If it is still relatively green or air dried, I'd expect good results (maybe not totally flat, but workable).  If it was kiln dried, the steaming can be less effective.

I've used this with success without a steam box by pouring 2 gallons of boiling water on both sides of a walnut board that was, how you say, 'cranky'.  I did not do much 'over bending' and I didn't get to do the sandwich, rather I used several QS 2x4s to clamp to.  Helped a lot.

 

[Notorious T.O.D.]

You can also do a dandy job of warping or in your case hopefully unwarping boards by just setting them out in the yard on a sunny day.  The sunny side will dry out and the side in the grass will stay wetter.  You can flip them every few hours or once or twice a day and even play a game of seeing how a board warps by doing this experiment.  Open grain softwoods react faster than hardwoods too.  Soaking boards in a tub of water is also a good and cheap way to remove old paint from salvaged boards or trim.  You just have to control the final drying out period to keep them nice...and sand down some raised grain.

Jointer and planer are the way to go for surfacing rough lumber though...a handheld planer could work but you would need good skills with it to make it work well.

Best,
Todd

 

[spikfot]

Good afternoon,

From an old persimmon tree that came down in a storm, a local mill cut 6 rough sawn boards 8 feet x 6.5 inches x 3/4 inch. The boards are warped. The wood itself is highly figured.

The project I am contemplating requires flat 1/2 thick boards. One option is to use a Festool planer. Will the 650 do the job or will I need the larger, more powerful...and more expensive...850?

Tom

_________________
Your desired finish product (flatness) depends entirely on how the millwright sawed your planks.
Judging by your post-"warped", "highly figured"- you would be incredibly lucky to plane out useable full widths at 6.5" and have 1/2" thickness remaining from 3/4"RS regardless of the lengths, unless the planks are truly 1/4 sawn, which is unfortunately uncommon unless directly requested in this day and age.