Building a planer sled...

[Paschale]

...to use my planer as a jointer.  That's the project...

I've got some boards that are much wider than my jointer, so I'm thinking of spending the day in the shop tomorrow building a planer sled.  I've seen some plans here and there, some with some fancy pants adjustable shims built in to fully support the board to keep it from rocking, and then some that just use screws spread about the board that you adjust.

Have any of you guys made one before?  Any ideas on methods that would work well to secure the board so the planer cuts a perfectly flat surface?

And don't just tell me to buy a bigger jointer.   

[SwampDonkey]

I think you mean "to use my jointer as a planer. 

Are you going to run the sled without the jointer fence? I'de just buy a 12 or 14" planer.

I have a 6" wide jointer, but rarely use any piece thicker than 2".

[ohsoloco]

Nah, he got it right, SD.  He wants to use the planer to make one face perfectly flat before planing the other side    To do this the board needs to be shimmed or somehow held solid so the warped part on the bottom doesn't affect the flattening of the top. 

I'd like to hear some ideas too.  I've often thought about trying this...I have an 8" jointer and a 15" planer.  Sometimes I can get away with taking the fence off and flipping a board end for end to get it all, but it doesn't always work 

Now if I just had a planer for those 16"+ boards I've cut on the sawmill 

[metalspinner]

I think a flat piece of MDF with your crooked board secured on it is what your talking about?

The biggest thing you need to watch out for are any loose shims going through the planer.Just make sure that you use plenty of shims along the lenghth of the board so your rollers don't press down  along the way.

After a few of times setting this up, you may find yourself thumbing through the catalogues looking for a wider jointer.

I often use my router to joint the face of wide boards.  A long subbase is attatched to the router and it rides on rails running the lenghth of the board.  The rails are in the same parellel plane, so the cut is in that plane. In fact, I have a dedicated router set up just for this task.  This has been discussed several times on the forum I believe.  It is a really quick way to joint the wide boards and takes little physical effort because you are handling the router not the heavy wide board. It really pays off when you are jointing wide and long 8/4 stuff.

[SwampDonkey]

I just make multiple shallow passes, she eventually flattens out. Then used the jointer to square up the edge.   Your lives are too complicated.  If the board is wider than the planer, then she gets ripped in two or maybe one edge is natural with bark, that needs removing anyway. I like boards 6-10" wide.

[Furby]

Who's gonna go check Donk's lumber eh

[Paschale]

Yup, I'm thinking of mdf.  I saw a slick planer sled demo online at FineWoodworking, and it was as easy as could be, and really lickity-split.  I'm kicking myself, because I'm not sure if I can find the issue that has the plans in it, which is why I'm asking the question. 

I'll do another dig, and see if I can maybe scan some photos of the thing.

[SwampDonkey]

Been posting pictures of the lumber, ya ain't pay'n attention.

[Paschale]

This will at least give you an idea, but you have to be a member of Finewoodworking.com to see it in its entirety. 

Link

[Furby]

Sure I have Donk, ya got this HUGE pile of shavings and this little ity bitty pile of lumber.
Claimed it took ya 3 hours to do it too.

Actually I'm with Paschale on this and watching to see how well he can get it to work as I have had the same problem.

[metalspinner]

Here is a pick of the set up...





A look under the hood...



My favorate part of doing it this way is that it only takes one pass on each side.  The router can hog off up to 1/4"in one pass.  I joint one face, then flip the board and plane it close to thickness with the router.  Then send it through the planer to final thicknessing.

[SwampDonkey]

Well, it had to be planed down to 7/8" because some lumber was barely an inch and a one sided planer is not very fast. Can't make a 1" planed board from a 1" rough board. Plus a lot of time was searching and sorting and bucking. I don't see what the sled is going to accomplish, in my case it wouldn't save on shavings, I'm dealing with lumber of thicknesses between 15/16 to 1-3/16". I'm not keen on tearing my stacks all apart to find exact thicknesses. If she looks like a beaut she goes into the project pile for planing.  If you have bad cupping on wide boards, your better off ripping it in two, planing it flat and jointing it square. Just my opinion. And if it's a little out of wack use only short pieces, if it's real bad, then it's either handle wood, or firewood.

[WDH]

P,

I sent you a PM.  I have a copy of the FW article that I can e-mail you.  Send me your e-mail address.

[Larry]

Slabs to 15” wide I use a MDF sled with little scraps as shims.  Quick squirt with the hot melt glue gun secures a couple of shims.  If the sled has a lip, you really don’t need to secure the shims as pressure from the feed rollers is downward and against the lip.  To lazy, to make the FWW sled...doesn’t look any more accurate or faster than the scrap shims.

Wider than 15”, I use metalspinner’s setup.  I have always called that thing a router bridge.  Well worth building.

[Paschale]

So Larry, you simply lay your board on the MDF, then shim it enough to keep it from rocking, then put a little hot glue under each shim?  With the board slammed up against a lip at the tail end?

This sounds like it's worth trying.   

[metalspinner]

I would think if the board to be planed has minimal twist that the hot glue itself could be the shim.  Squeeze a puddle out and press your board onto it until the glue sets up. A few squirts along the length could hold everything secure.

[WDH]

Is the lip on the front of the sled to keep the workpiece from being pulled off the sled from the front?

[Larry]

Lip to the front seems best.  It doesn't take much of the hot melt glue to keep things in place.

[Paschale]

Well, I made my first attempt tonight.  I decided to go with a very basic sled.  I bought some 16" MDF shelving from Menard's, then trimmed it to 14" to give a 1/2 " clearance on either side of the planer.  I attached a lip to both the front and back--the back, like everyone suggested, to keep the board from flying off the sled, and on the back in case of kickback.

It was a little touch and go, but it worked.  The shimming was really kind of a PITA.  Next time, I think I should try the hot glue method.

I set it up on my table saw and outfeed table, so it would be a nice solid, flat surface to start with.  I had to cut the shims very small, since they couldn't stick out of the side of the board.  I got it so it wouldn't rock any longer, and ran her through.  I went light on my first pass, just to see how it would react, and really only took a little bite out of one corner.  The thing's heavy, with the MDF and the board, and I realized that hauling it back and forth with a ton of light passes would go old pretty quick.  I took a bigger bite, but she got stuck.     I think with the shimming, there's one corner that was really riding high, and she bogged down.  I've got a 5HP planer too.  It coulda been that the table wasn't as slick as it should be either.  I should have taken the time to put some wax on it, since I haven't used my planer in months.  Anyway, I was just anxious to give it a whirl.  A wax job is on the docket for tomorrow.

Anyway, I reset the shims, swung her around to try it again, and hit a shelf behind me, which knocked the sled right out of my hands.    Back to the set up.  Got it set, and the bizarre thing that I found is that the shimming was a little different each time.  Which makes sense, I guess, depending on what corner you would start with.  Regardless, I ran her through a few more times and had a flat surface...pretty much.  I tested it out on the table saw and outfeed table, and saw that it was perfectly flat except for the last six inches or so on one side.  I decided heck with it, and cut off the offending six inches with the miter saw, and then started planing like I normally would.  It resulted in a perfectly flat, uniform board, that's 13" wide.   

A couple of things I've learned in this first try:

1.  If you use MDF, get at least 3/4".  This MDF is 5/8" and it isn't as rigid as I would like it to be.  Half way through the process, I realized that the shims were shifting a little bit, as the weight of the sled caused it to sag on itself.  I started cradling the sled from underneath as I moved it, and this fixed the problem.

2.  I think making a system of matching holes in the back end of the sled, with corresponding small dowels on the back lip would help accommodate differing size boards, kind of like the many drilled holes in a bookshelf where you can adjust the height of the shelves.

3.  You can't have enough shims.

Finally, I think I may take the time to build that Fine Woodworking jig.  This method isn't that efficient.  If you had to joint and plane a lot of wide boards, I think that jig would work well.  The other thing I like about that jig is the torsion box construction that keeps the sled rigid.  That caused some problems, as I mentioned.

All in all, though, it worked great, though I need some practice on it the method.  When all's said and done, I've got a nice S4S piece of ash sitting right here, that's over twice as wide as my jointer!   

Thanks for the suggestions and comments guys!

[WDH]

So, whatcha gonna make with it?