For Thomas, ripping a waney board

[DaveL]

Thomas,
You where interested in how I had prepared the waney edge boards, as promised here is a set of picture of the process.
The small board that I am going to work with.

I have a very crude sled made from a piece of chip board with some toggle clamps.

I clamp the board on so where I want to cut is parallel to the edge of the sled. One edge of the sled slides against the fence on the saw, guiding the board.

Then set the fence on the saw, my saw is a B&Q one just like yours. I use safety glasses and ear defenders, even with the dust collector running and the guard down the dust can surprise you.

That gets me one straight edge on the board.

As this board is more than 10" wide, I will rip the other edge so it will go through my planner/thicknesser.

Then I flattern one side on the planner.

Followed by squaring on edge.

I now have to convert the machine to thicknessing mode.

One cut and it just cutting the high spot off.

As I am not machining this to use straight away I stop now most of the board is flat. When I cut it to size I will thickness it to the required size but this will now rest until required.

The other reason for stopping the dust bag is full :?

I hope that makes the process clear.

 

[thomaskennedy]

ah i see now! thanks a bunch DaveL!

how is your perform P/T i am going to buy one as soon as i get some pennies!

Tom

ps. my T/S is exactly the same as yours! hopefully upgrade one day...maybe when i win the lottery....hmmm...now theres a thought :wink:

 

[Alf]

Dave,

An excellent step-by-step illustration of the process - proper job. 8)

Cheers, Alf

 

[DaveL]

Thomas,

The planer/thicknesser works really well. I thing I have had problems with was the dust hood, it works OK in planer mode but just does not fit on when the machine is in thcknessing mode. Thats why I made the dust hood, the one in the picture is my second go at it, the first one was a bit flimsy .

If you are going to buy one you must get a dust collector. Particularly in your basement workshop. The thicknesser needs the chips removed from it or they will drop back into the cutter head and go through the feed rollers. That will ruin the finish on your timber

 

[DaveL]

Alf,

Thanks, feels a little strange. I use to teach mirco electronics in a past life, it all floods back :shock:

It also seems a bit Norm like :twisted: pass the mouth wash :wink:

 

[Bean]

Dave
Good set of images and descriptions, I must get one of those PT things, and a proper dust extractor. I have just been using my No 5 to thickness some mahogany for a Flute Stand. .......My arms hurt !!

Bean

 

[DaveL]

Bean,
But you are now much fitter than me :lol: I must admit that I did limit what I tried to make before I got the PT, making 8 chairs from saw boards would not have crossed my mind, let alone a desk :lol:

 

[thomaskennedy]

DaveL
the P/T im getting is the deal that comes with a chip collector for £469.99 i think?! something around that anyway!

thanks again

Tom

 

[OPJ]

It may be crude Dave (and three years old now!) but it's still a very good idea for straightening a waney-edge.

No nails or screws required, so you don't damage the timber either. My only concern is what might happen to the offcut as it drops down the the table. If it gets caught by the rear teeth of the blade, it could come flying towards you in any number of small pieces! I guess you could clamp a spare scrap of chipboard (same thickness) the the left-side though.

And depending on the size of your machine, you could also make one for the bandsaw as well.

 

[Scrit]

You're going to hate me for saying this, but with a conventional rip saw the technique I've used for years is to snap a chalk line, draw the rip fence right back and freehand cut very carefully. If the board has tension in it and starts to pinch the riving knife, stop the saw, bang in a couple of hardwood wedges (every rip saw should have them), pull the board back a bit then restart the cut. This works well on heavy boards, but less well on lighter ones. Of course this doesn't work quite as well on a saw with a splitter rather than a riving knife and can become almost suicidial if you decide to saw reaction timber on a saw with neither riving knife nor crown guard :roll: .......

Scrit

 

[Anonymous]

Same here Scrit, but don't really get waney edge boards these days, think the last load was for a pippy oak kitchen. The wastage is ridiculous

 

[Chris Knight]

More or less as Scrit. I draw a straight line, rip it (often with a hand held jigsaw if it's a long piece) then just plane a straight edge on the nearly straight saw cut.

 

[Scrit]

Same here Scrit, but don't really get waney edge boards these days, think the last load was for a pippy oak kitchen. The wastage is ridiculous

If you think pippy oak is ridiculous, try European walnut :roll:

Scrit

 

[Gary]

Check out that sled it's bigger than his table saw. Another classic example of how as amateurs we don't really need that Felder CF 741 S .


But it would be nice to have one all the same.

 

[Harbo]

I use a lot of wany edge timber as I live reasonably close to a small lumber operation.
As I have not made a sledge I use my long guide clamp and my portable circular saw. All supported (generally outside on a couple of saw horses).
If it's too long for my guide then its careful "freehand" following a chalk line.
I also put it through my thicknesser (and not the planer - is that wrong?) to get a good side for the edge plane.

Rod

 

[Scrit]

I also put it through my thicknesser (and not the planer - is that wrong?) to get a good side for the edge plane.

If you have a board with a kink in it, then yes, it's wrong.

Scrit

 

[Inspector]

You're going to hate me for saying this, but with a conventional rip saw the technique I've used for years is to snap a chalk line, draw the rip fence right back and freehand cut very carefully. If the board has tension in it and starts to pinch the riving knife, stop the saw, bang in a couple of hardwood wedges (every rip saw should have them), pull the board back a bit then restart the cut. This works well on heavy boards, but less well on lighter ones. Of course this doesn't work quite as well on a saw with a splitter rather than a riving knife and can become almost suicidial if you decide to saw reaction timber on a saw with neither riving knife nor crown guard :roll: .......

Scrit

I don't hate you :x , but in light of your stance on safety in general, I am a bit surprised :shock: to see you write the above even if you do do it.

I do it too and I'm fine with it myself because I've had the benefit of being able to watch my father, Danish trained and now 85, cut like that and more. (Kind of wish I could download the things he hasn't told me because the situation or subject hasn't came up yet.) I hesitate :-$ to mention it to others because someone without the experience or savvy to know when safe becomes unsafe might get in trouble. (homer)

I'll go back to quietly :-# walking the wood working tight rope. (A few inches off the ground.)

 

[Scrit]

I don't hate you :x , but in light of your stance on safety in general, I am a bit surprised :shock: to see you write the above even if you do do it.

Why? Waney edge stock is normally long and wide and consequently heavy. As such, and with a sharp blade, it is much less likely to kick back than short thin stock, IMHO. The fence is pulled back out of harms way to prevent pinching which leaves two possible problem areas - that the stock will pinch-in on the riving knife or that the operator wil turn the stock in cut. Either can cause a stall or potential kickback, but if you are standing in the correct position, i.e. to the left of the workpiece, with the waney edge being trimmed off to the right of the blade any "event" will merely result in the piece being thrown back past you. In any cased as soon as you detect any binding you stop the saw and add a wedge or knock the last one in a bit more and you ease the work back a bit so the blade runs free on restart. As a professional woodworker I'm ripping timber on a full-size saw with a good sized outfeed support table and with an infeed roller stand as well as using push sticks. Without all this "gubbins" (or standard equipment in reality) the cut is much more difficult to control and can become dangerous. With them it isn't. The problems tend to arise when people try to rip long pieces on underpowered machines with inadequate support, a blunt and/or inappropriate blade (i.e. not a proper low tooth count rip blade) and the guard/riving knife removed, or "American style" as I call it...... Now that is scary.

I've recently had the "joy" of ripping down some hardwood which came from a tree which had corkscrew grain, so it was very stressed and wrapped itself around the riving knife and started to bind every 6 to 9 inches. It took 4 or 5 wedges to saw a 7 foot length, but there was no kickback because the machine was stopped and wedges inserted every time it started to bind (somewhat worrying on a 7HP saw). Only the waney edge was cut away in this manner - all the other cuts were done against the "short" rip fence as per normal. Yes, it does take more judgement than a jig or a portable saw for sure, but not that much.

To reiterate the saw needs:

- a decent size motor
- a sharp, low tooth count rip blade (not a combi blade)
- a run-off table
- a riving knife and crown guard, both correctly adjusted (i.e. riving knife no more than 8mm behind the blade and slightly thinner than the kerf of the blade)
- an adequate run off table at the rear of the saw
- infeed support roller(s) as required
- two long push sticks
- hardwood wedges and a mallet

You need:
- to stand to the left out of harm's way
- to stop every time the work starts to bind even slightly and adjust/insert wedges
- a chalk line
- to try avoiding any hard knots in the timber

Scrit

 

[davy_owen_88]

Wouldn't cutting it with a bandsaw with appropriate support be quicker than faffing about with wedges though?

 

[Scrit]

Wouldn't cutting it with a bandsaw with appropriate support be quicker than faffing about with wedges though?

It all depends if you have access to a bandsaw, though. In any case all the foregoing should be next to/around your rip saw with the possible exception of wedges (and they can sometimes be necessary even on bandsaws). On a bandsaw you'd still need the run-on/run-off support

Scrit