Thread: Getting Old Wood Square = Nails = blunt blade = termites!!

To get a flat reference face you need a jointer. Or, you can do it by hand with a jointing plane. The machine option is obviously the easiest.

Then once you have a flate reference face you can joint the adjacent edge.

Now you have a board with one edge that is 90 degrees to the face. Run the board through a thicknesser to get it to the desired thickness and to have the opposing face parallel. Then, rip it to width using the edge you jointed against the fence. Now you have a square board DAR.

Nails are not good for your saw blade. If you are going to use a lot of recycled timber you may want to invest in a metal detector.

I'd be very worried about bringing termites home to my house.

If you will use a lot of recycled timber always have a spare elcheapo tungsten tip blade on hand and just throw them out when they get a bit hard to cut.

If they're subterranean termites don't worry about them as they cannot survive when they are isolated from their nest.

Yes, you can get blades re-sharpened and teeth replaced.

General rule of thumb is that if it needs more than 3 new teeth, buy another blade. Naturally, this will depend on cost of blades and the saw doctor you see.

If you are going to be doing any quantity of re-cycled timber, invest in a wood wizard, or similar detector. It will pay for itself in saved down time and repairs to blades in saws and planes.

Sounds as though you have potentially nice timber. Given what this timber costs new, recycling can sometimes be a good and more satisfying option.

I have found though that you have to be ruthless sometimes. Can't make good chicken soup out of chicken S#!t.

I have taken timber to cabinet makers to have it dressed in the past. By the sounds of your timber though, save yourself a trip. If there is a chance of it having nails in it, don't even ask.

There is a DVD from Taunton press called Mastering Woodworking Machines by Mark Duginsky

http://www.taunton.com/store/pages/061011.asp

I highly recommend this to anyone who is starting out in woodwork. It will give you a good footing of the basics and speed up your learning curve, hopefully help to prevent you from over or under spending on your tool purchases as well.

Any practical tips I am likely to give on this topic (Dressing Timber) are likely to have originated from this DVD.

Good luck

Steve

If you're going to be cutting a lot of timber with nails in it or dags of concrete on it there's special blades available with a different composition TCT which tends not to shatter as easily when cutting through nails etc. Can't remember the name for them but they're often used by formwork carpenters.

Mick

Xootog
As echnidna says get your self a spare blade or 2. For my trition which runs a Hitachi 2hp 235mm saw I bought a tungsten 80 tooth blade off TradeTools at Capalaba for about $39 which was about 1/3 price of original blade and amazingly it cuts about twice as good as the dearer one. I also get them to sharpen them for about $12/time. 80tooth gives a very clean chip free cut on veneer and particle board. Have built 3 complete kitchens on mine so far and SHMBO has been very happy with the results each time. Also bought the sliding table which with some help can handle an 8x4 sheet quite well.