a_10lodr Posted January 3, 2011 Report Share Posted January 3, 2011 OK, I am very new to the wood working arena and am currently stationed in Germany. The wood shop on base has a pretty decent assortment of nice hardwoods, however they only have it in a limited size selection. I want to make a nesting serving tray set for my wife as my first project. The project calls for 1/2" wood and I was thinking of going a little bit thicker and going 9/16". The problem I am having is the thinnest board size is 5/4. I want to project to turn out nice as you would expect, but other than running the wood through a jointer/planer to remove the large excess I am at a loss. I thought about trying to cut it down on a band saw, however I'm not sure if I went this direction what the best amount would be to remove and still have enough to plane out to the size I want. Any help you guys/gals can provide would be greatly appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulMarcel Posted January 3, 2011 Report Share Posted January 3, 2011 I think the bandsaw idea is the best. Since you're likely new to resawing, you could rip the stock to something a little wider than the sides of the trays (I'm assuming they have sides). Run that through the bandsaw to split the 5/4 into, well, 2.5/4 Turn the resawn piece inside out (put the freshly cut faces out, "old" faces back to back) and clamp together to let settle overnight; helps with my stock, but Arizona is a little drier. If that resawing turns out okay for you, consider resawing the rest of the stock for the tray bottom. Planing 5/4 down to 1/2" would be hugely wasteful and this is a perfect opportunity to get into some resawing. Maybe have someone there help you out with it to feel comfortable. You'll still need to plane it all later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Link Posted January 4, 2011 Report Share Posted January 4, 2011 +1 to Paul-Marcel. Resaw is the way to go. Why turn your nice 5/4 stock into sawdust and chips when you can use the cutoffs for other projects? How close you can safely resaw to your finished size depends on how well set up your bandsaw is. If your saw is tuned for drift, etc. and your technique is good then you may be able to get close enough that only a few passes through the planer will be sufficient. If you have problems with uneven thickness off the bandsaw across your board than you will want to leave more meat to clean up on the planer. Aside from tuning up the bandsaw, super basic things that can help are: a. Have a tall fence on the bandsaw to provide support. b. A featherboard can also be helpful. c. Slow feed rates unless your saw is very powerful. d. Tune the saw for drift or, if that's an issue, draw a line on the side of the board and simply follow it as best you can. This second approach is why some resaw fences have a curved pivot point at the center to allow on the fly adjustment. e. Joint two adjacent faces before resawing to keep everything square. Have fun! R Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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