[Music Playing]
To join a rough edge on the router table, I start by double stick taping a 16th inch shim to the left side of the fence.
[Music Playing]
Next I align my straight bit with the shim.
[Music Playing]
At this point we have essentially created a mini jointer.
[Music Playing]
Watch closely as the edge becomes perfectly straight.
[Music Playing]
Just as with edge jointing, the most obvious alternative for flattening the board is with a bench plane. Now there is a really good article posted on the W.W.A. Forum about my good friend Tom. You can copy the link below or simply click on the link located in the articles and tutorials section of the wood whisperer homepage.
[Music Playing]
Now I know at least some of you have confronted a problem like this before. We got a nice beautiful wide board and you do not really know how to get that face flat without cutting it into smaller pieces that will fit on your six inch jointer. Watch this next tip and you will see how I take care of this problem.
[Music Playing]
I use a piece of three quarter inch plywood as my slip. The piece should not be wider than your planer can handle and the length depends on the length of the board you are trying to flatten. And lay the board down on the slide and determine where the high spots are. Using hot glue I secure the board to the slide and alleviate any rocking motion at the same time. The goal is to completely immobilize the board. After letting the glue set, I give it one last test for stability. After several passes through the planer, I use a straight edge to determine if the board is truly flat. That is pretty good.
[Music Playing]
Now one of the coolest ways that I know to flatten a board especially if it is a really wide board that is just too wide for the planer maybe it is even odd shaped and it is just not something you would ever send through a planer is to use a router sled on a set of guide rails. It is a really cool technique and it is actually pretty simple. You have whatever board your looking to flatten, immobilize on the surface kind of like we did on the last example of board flattening when we put it on a sled for the planer, we just need to be immobilize this on a bench. Use the hot glue, use some shims if you need to, just make sure it does not rock and it is very stable. Then you need to guide rails which will sit on either side and then some sort of a sled now this is just a solid piece of wood, but it just as an example, you would drill a hole in the middle that allows your bit to come through.
You would actually attach the router to the sled to immobilize it and then bring this down so that the bit is touching the surface at the lowest point and then you simply turn everything on. Obviously you want to wax this rails and just go back and forth until the entire thing is flattened because it cannot moved. You will get a flat surface.
Now when I have done a really, really large projects, for instance, experimentally I wanted to flattened my work bench without using traditional methods, I actually wanted to do it using this method. So I actually constructed this big guy here. This was the actual sled that I used for my router and it fits inside here. The bit goes through that little hole and I had a huge router sled set up with this big giant guide rails. I actually just use two by fours and make sure they were milled perfectly flat and used that to do my bench and it worked really good just make sure your sled is very rigid. You can see this one is completely reinforced, it is not going to flex or bend under the way of the router. Very cool technique.
Now there is also an article on the W.W.A. Forum on how to do this exact technique. There is a lot of pictures there that explains the whole process in details. You may want to check that out. Go to the link below or you could find the link on the homepage at the woodwhisperer.com.
[Music Playing]
Oh! I hope you have enjoyed this episode of the Wood Whisperer and I hope you have a better understanding of proper milling techniques in why we need them.
Now if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email us at thewoodwhisperer@gmail.com and be sure to check out the website at www.thewoodwhisperer.com. And we always have new features and new articles that will not necessary make it into the feed so be sure to visit the site as frequently as possible. Our newest feature the website in fact is the Wood Whisperer Store. It is really just an amazon.com affiliate site, but your purpose is actually help out the show. Speaking of which, I would like to take a moment to thank you guys who actually place orders at Wood Whisperer Store and click on the ads on the homepage. Your support is really appreciated and it allows me to keep these videos free.
So again, thank you. And before I forget, I also added an email subscription service for those of you prefer to receive the Wood Whisperer updates to your emails. It is pretty cool so check it out. Just put your email address into the box on the Wood Whisperer homepage and follow the instructions.
Be sure to join us next time when we finally make our first project. I was thinking something like this; it is my signature endgrain cutting board. And it is a lot easier to make than it looks. I will show you hoe on the next Wood Whisperer.
[Music Playing]
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services