Thread: Help squaring up pieces and with biscuit joins

Sorry I should mention that the pine is dressed too.

Originally Posted by garfield

Hi all,

I wondering if anyone could help me on a problem I keep getting and I'm buggered If I know how - or how I can avoid it.

1. How do I square up timber? I recently brought some radiata pine (crap I know) To build a guy a custom made entertainment unit. I cut some on my Triton 2000 to make a square piece to cover the internals of a drawer and discovered that it was even square I started to check a few more pieces with my set square and discovered that none of the pieces were square I just started to think how can I make them square?? would I be right in thinking a Thicknesser? can someone please tell me.
Thicknesser wont square the timber, you need a jointer to do this.

2. Biscuit joins - I have joined a few pieces of the pine together to create the side panels for the unit and some shelves and I used my Triton router table to make the joins and glued them and used sash clamps to clamp them. I find that every time I do it using this method I end up with two different heights. along the board it varies but it's not a flush finish and I end up having to use the belt sander to get them flush with each other as along the board it's higher in some spots than it is in others. Help with these questions would be so much appreciated.
The timber needs to be exactly the same thickness to achieve nice flush joints. Usually when you buy timber from the hardware store or timber yard, although it is sold as a certain thickness etc.. In reality the timber will vary sllightly and in some cases quite a bit and using a biscuit joiner cuts the slots at the same level in each piece of timber you are going to join up. So although the biscuit slots will line up, the different thicknesses of the timber will be obvious when they are joined together.
You need a thicknesser to run all the pieces of the timber through prior to biscuit joining to make all the pieces exactly the same thickness.so the pieces will line up perfectly.

Thanks
Geoff

Hope this helps.

Originally Posted by garfield

Sorry I should mention that the pine is dressed too.

Even though it is dressed, it will still vary in dimensions. If you don't have a thicknesser then you must select your timber very carefully and make sure that you select pieces that are the same thickness.

Originally Posted by munruben

Even though it is dressed, it will still vary in dimensions. If you don't have a thicknesser then you must select your timber very carefully and make sure that you select pieces that are the same thickness.

I have a thicknesser thankfully. So even if it's the same piece of timber, but just cut in half it can still vary in thickness?

And the only way you can square the timber is with a jointer?

Biscuits still allow some movement up and down when you use them, if you clamp a flat piece of wood across the joins top and bottom as your are pulling in your join, it will help stop this happening, it will also help stop it cupping.

Donna

You can also quickly square up timber with a hand plane, the longer ones are called jointers which were made for this very purpose.

Even if it came from the timber supplier square, it doesn't take much to knock the square corners around. I always plane the edges prior to gluing up.

Timber bows and even on an apparent straight piece, joining planks side by side, the bowing will show up as you described. Using biscuits as already suggested will minimise this problem but you generally have to tidy up when the glue is dry. Again, I often use a hand plane.

For drawers, I always make the them oversize and then hand plane to fit. Nothing is ever 100% accurate and attempting to make drawers and the carcass fit perfectly off the saw is almost impossible even with top machines.

Good luck with your project, how about some photos?

Originally Posted by flynnsart

Biscuits still allow some movement up and down when you use them, if you clamp a flat piece of wood across the joins top and bottom as your are pulling in your join, it will help stop this happening, it will also help stop it cupping.

Donna

Thanks Donna.

Originally Posted by Wood Borer

You can also quickly square up timber with a hand plane, the longer ones are called jointers which were made for this very purpose.

Even if it came from the timber supplier square, it doesn't take much to knock the square corners around. I always plane the edges prior to gluing up.

Timber bows and even on an apparent straight piece, joining planks side by side, the bowing will show up as you described. Using biscuits as already suggested will minimise this problem but you generally have to tidy up when the glue is dry. Again, I often use a hand plane.

For drawers, I always make the them oversize and then hand plane to fit. Nothing is ever 100% accurate and attempting to make drawers and the carcass fit perfectly off the saw is almost impossible even with top machines.

Good luck with your project, how about some photos?

So I'm not the only one that ends up with a variance in height when joining two timbers together with biscuits?

Is it possible to square up a piece of timber using say my Triton? If I set the fence square and set the measurement parallel to the blade, does that not finish the piece of timber square?

Garfield,
I've had very acceptable results using the Triton.
I find I got the best results using a 60 tooth blade and making two cuts. The first one about 1 - 1.5 mm oversize and then a final planning cut.
I've also experienced your "up and down" problem (I used biscuits as well) and put it down to the fact that the timber is simply not that straight, as Wood borer says.
You can, by careful selection, minimise the problem, but in the end you'll usually find small highs and lows along the joints.

Ian

Originally Posted by Ian Smith

Garfield,
I've had very acceptable results using the Triton.
I find I got the best results using a 60 tooth blade and making two cuts. The first one about 1 - 1.5 mm oversize and then a final planning cut.
I've also experienced your "up and down" problem (I used biscuits as well) and put it down to the fact that the timber is simply not that straight, as Wood borer says.
You can, by careful selection, minimise the problem, but in the end you'll usually find small highs and lows along the joints.

Ian

So you use the Triton to square up your pieces of timber you mean by making those two cuts with the fence set parallel to the blade to make it square?

And thanks for the tip on the up's and down's using the biscuit joiner. At least I know it's not just me. I will try Donna's tip and clamp down on the join while the pieces are in the sash clamps though and see if that improves it.

Originally Posted by garfield

So you use the Triton to square up your pieces of timber you mean by making those two cuts with the fence set parallel to the blade to make it square?

I originally took a bit of time to set up a Triton saw in the bench and now I just use the rulers on the fence to cut to the size I want - I usually set the outfeed side of the fence about 1 - 1.5 mm oversize to avoid jamming the work between the fence and riving blade so , no it's not parrallel to the blade but my cuts are a 90 degrees to the face of the work laying on the table, and that's what you're looking for when you are jointing and I assume that's what you mean by square.

BTW - it also helps to make a note of which side you lay on the table for each piece - just in case you do have some variation in thickness from one side to the other. A thicknesser would sort this out of course , but if you don't have one it takes an awful lot of sanding to set it right

Ian

Originally Posted by Ian Smith

I originally took a bit of time to set up a Triton saw in the bench and now I just use the rulers on the fence to cut to the size I want - I usually set the outfeed side of the fence about 1 - 1.5 mm oversize to avoid jamming the work between the fence and riving blade so , no it's not parallel to the blade but my cuts are a 90 degrees to the face of the work laying on the table, and that's what you're looking for when you are jointing and I assume that's what you mean by square.

Ian please forgive my stupidity here but I don't really follow how you do it. On my Triton I have my fence set up on the left hand side of the saw blade. if I set my fence up with a measurement at say 250mm at both ends my fence will be running parallel to the blade which would give me a square piece of timber once I run it through and then cut off either end using my extension table to cut the ends off square at 90 degrees. Do you do it a different way?

BTW - it also helps to make a note of which side you lay on the table for each piece - just in case you do have some variation in thickness from one side to the other. A thicknesser would sort this out of course , but if you don't have one it takes an awful lot of sanding to set it right

Ian

Yeah that's what ends up happening all the time I spend a heap of time sanding them to get to a stage where I can rub my hand over the piece and not feel the step.

Garfield,
I assume you mean that in planform your piece of work is a rectangle (all four corners being 90 degrees). Using the Triton (or any table saw with a fence and featherboards) you can pretty much guarantee that your cut will be parallel to the face adjacent to the fence and then if remove the ends at 90 degrees to either side you ought to end up with the piece being square. Personally, unless there's a special reason not to, I would not bother about squaring up the work until I had jointed all the pieces. Just make them longer than they need to be initially. If you try to make all your pieces the exact length before jointing then you just make it that much more difficult for yourself to fit them all together, especially with biscuits which allow longitudinal movement.

Hope I'm understanding your issue correctly and this helps

Ian

Originally Posted by Ian Smith

Garfield,
I assume you mean that in planform your piece of work is a rectangle (all four corners being 90 degrees). Using the Triton (or any table saw with a fence and featherboards) you can pretty much guarantee that your cut will be parallel to the face adjacent to the fence and then if remove the ends at 90 degrees to either side you ought to end up with the piece being square. Personally, unless there's a special reason not to, I would not bother about squaring up the work until I had jointed all the pieces. Just make them longer than they need to be initially. If you try to make all your pieces the exact length before jointing then you just make it that much more difficult for yourself to fit them all together, especially with biscuits which allow longitudinal movement.

Hope I'm understanding your issue correctly and this helps

Ian

I actually wait untill I have joined them as well before I cut them too.

Now that I know that there's really not a great deal I can do to stop the step in my biscuit joins I just need to know how I can achieve a square piece of timber without a jointer. I'm sorry if I'm confusing you but every day I realize I still have so much to learn when it comes to woodwork.