Thread: In regards to dressing timber....without a jointer or thicknesser

Basically, none of those options - as described - will guarantee a nice, flat & coplanar face.

An option I would look at would be to make a sled/cradle. eg. Ripping down a sheet of MDF so it's maybe 900 wide and full length, then cutting two more pieces and glue/screwing to the sides as rails, so that their height above the MDF is around 20mm less i than the full depth cut of your circular saw.

I'd secure whatever piece of lumber you want to cut inside the cradle, using whatever method is needed to hold it firmly. Screws through from the underside, wedges to keep it level, whatever. Just be careful no fasteners are in the path of any cuts you want to make.

Then you could make a sled to span across the top of the cradle and fasten a circ saw to it. A little bit of creativity to ensure the sled slides in a straight line along the cradle (a coupla bits of scrap wood clamped in appropriate spots of the sled, perhaps?) and you should be able to get a few cuts in that'll be as good as you could hope for.

Such a cradle does not have to be a big, bulky thing either. It does need to be rigid in use, but beyond that - with a bit of ingenuity - it could be made to break down to store away neatly somewhere when not in use.

Here is one way ..

Link: Preparing a board without a thicknesser-planer-jointer

Regards from Perth

Derek

Skew, you got me searching and thinking again - do you think something like these could work? If I was to thickness timber like pic 1, I would need to obviously do the cut, flip it over and make another (because the width of timber being wider than a circ saw's depth of cut). I could then tidy up the two pieces with planes.


Thicknessing Jig.jpg Narrow Ripping Jig.jpg

Derek, that is a monster of a jointer plane! Thank you for the link. In your opinion is the initial flattening the hardest part? I'm wondering if I can rip the edges with a circ saw and square up the board from there.

Granted that I don't want to have to buy 5 more planes, do you think I could get by with just my jack plane and a jointer plane? Or would you recommend a scrub plane too?

Thanks for the help

I was going to suggest that you possibly get someone in your area that does have a bandsaw to do the ripping for you, but since you plan to do it regularly that's not too practical.


You said "I've been tossing up whether to go for a small bandsaw with a fence,"

This is the best plan - a bandsaw and a jointer plane. You can get a 12" bandsaw for around $400, which would allow you to resaw up to about 150mm wide boards, depending on the timber. It's not a big investment and doesn't take up that much space. As a bonus, you can cut curves as well. Also a hell of a lot safer than a circular saw - probably the safest machine in my workshop.
I doubt that you'd regret the purchase.

To avoid hand planing and lots of noise, I bought a wide drum sander to clean up the faces, but they're pretty expensive. I still hand-plane to joint the edges, though.

Originally Posted by JPA

Skew, you got me searching and thinking again - do you think something like these could work? If I was to thickness timber like pic 1, I would need to obviously do the cut, flip it over and make another (because the width of timber being wider than a circ saw's depth of cut). I could then tidy up the two pieces with planes.

I can't see any reason they wouldn't work, so long as the pieces you're working aren't too warped or uneven. In pic 1, I'd move the clamps down a bit, as you don't want the pressure of the clamps 'closing the kerf' on the blade while it's cutting.

I had similar problems with the first being that the timber was not square; and my solution was to make a sled for a router then chock the slab with wedges and using a large planing router bit run over the slab. This removes the high spots and twists, the rest I used a saw (triton) and managed to reduce it to smaller sizes; and a lot of sawdust.
Hope this helps.
Mark