Planing green lumber

[woodhick]

I have a friend that needs a planer to plane green lumber off the mill with.  He recently bought a powermatic 221 20" planer.  I told him before he bought it that I didn't think it would work.  After lots of work to get it runnig we tried it on green wood and it does'nt work well.  Any one using this type of planer on green lumber.  We have the bed rolls raised all the way(about .040 thousands).   My 225 powermatic has powered bed rolls but the 221 does'nt.  He don't know whether to keep this planer or try to find an older roughing planer.  Any suggestions?

[karl]

Not familiar with the 221, but I think he needs to have serrated infeed rolls powered on both top and bottom, depending on how accurate the stock is- he may want more travel in the rolls than some finish planers have.
I have a friend who modified an old Belsaw with an infeed roll with deep, sharp teeth/grooves and used some of that slippery plastic like cutting boards are made of for a bedboard(like Woodmaster sells). He also raised the bar that he could gnaw off 3/8" too. (His sawing left something to be desired)
It worked- but was far from ideal.
I have a old (brand unknown) ball bearing foursider roughmill that I run by pto- works fine for rough planing- too few cuts per inch for finish. cost was $2000. set up onskids and a roof over, most folks don't want big ole flat belt setups so they are often cheap. Have seen single siders go for couple hundred.

[brdmkr]

Forgive me if this question is a bit dumb, but I have never even considered planing green wood.  Why would you want to do that?   Are there cases when it is best to plane green?  It seems that it would need to be planed again to final dimension as drying would result in shrinkage.     ??? ???

[woodhick]

brdmkr,  I have very seldom planed green lumber.  i agree it needs to be dried first, but  my buddy is going to be building pallets and his lumber is straight off of a circle mill so it is a little "rough" for the finished product.   We've been looking for an old 2 or 4 sided planer but have'nt found any yet that are all there.  flat belts are not a problem.

[iain]

Go for the oldest simple model you can find, with big clearance for chips, and good extraction (spend time and $$ if you have to on getting the chips away)
you will need powered in and out feed, the plastic will work fine, but only till you get crud ground in,
the best tip even with powered rollers is to keep the bed clean and waxed at all times,
wet planing can produce a really nice finish, which i some times use for timber i let warp and twist before use, just needs a light sand

iain

[Ga_Boy]

When the material is planned the surface is clean this allows for even drying, which gives you the best results when you AD and/or KD.  Another benifit is you now have consistant thickenss material, which gives you better results when you sticker.  The material will have a bette chance of staying flat as the weight is now evenly distrubuted.

Planning of the saw is a good move if you are selling retail or need blanks for milling further down the line.

[TexasTimbers]

Forgive me if this question is a bit dumb, but I have never even considered planing green wood.  Why would you want to do that? Are there cases when it is best to plane green?  It seems that it would need to be planed again to final dimension as drying would result in shrinkage.     ??? ???

No it isn't dumb. But here's a situation where I may be looking at having to do it at some point. I have been fooling around with sawing Osage Orange (Bois D' Arc) and when it is green it saws as easy as oak or any other hardwood, but I keep hearing horror stories about it after it's been kiln dried (or air dried for long periods) that it is heck on tools. If that's true, I'm going to want to rough plane it right off the sawmill so that hopefully the finish planing will not be as intensive.
This is all theory to me as I have not yet worked with osage other than green.

[jimF]

If it is for pallets, unless the boards are really waving there should be no need to plan them.  It is performed on on appearance grade lumber if 1) the boards are wavy, 2) it is oak (this reduces surface checking) or 3) to increase kiln capacity by removing what will be waste material.