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Whats the best way to make ship lap?

Started by justinmay1982, August 16, 2013, 03:13:58 AM

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justinmay1982

Well I have been sawing for a little bit now and loving every second. I am currently sawing lumber for a camp I am building for a customer. The customer wants ship lap floors and ship lap interior walls vertical. I am looking for the best way to do this Dado or Router? I have a De Walt Dw744 table saw but no Dado blades (yet). I also have a craftsman router but no table. I will be using pine for both the floor and the walls. Maybe spruce for the floors. I have a good bit of ship lap to do and was wondering what you folks think is the better way or if I am not thinking of another way of doing it. I appreciate your replies in advance thank you Justin

york

Too bad,you don`t have a shaper,thats how i am going to do mine.....
Albert

giant splinter

A moulder may likely do the best job on flooring and shiplap, you can make shiplap and flooring on everything from routers to table saws and even radial arm saws but the trick to precise board width is a moulder or at the least a double spindle shaper. Here is a link to some ideas on this topic by other small wood shop owners.
http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_base/Choosing_a_Shaper_for_Tongue_and_Groove.html
roll with it

moosehunter

The first time I did ship lap I used my table saw with reg blade, just set the blade correctly and turn the board on its side - 4 passes and you are done. The next time I had a shaper with power feed - 2 passes and done. A double head shaper sounds like a time saver!
"And the days that I keep my gratitude
Higher than my expectations
Well, I have really good days".    Ray Wylie Hubbard

Happycamper

justinmay1982,
  Ship lap, T and G or you can "spline" your boards also. Can be done with router, table saw or shaper. Splines are cut on the table saw.
                                          Jim
Wether you think you can or you can't you're right

Hilltop366

I'm thinking that a table saw with dado blade would be less prone to chipping out than a router because of the relation of the rotation of the blade verses the face of the board. 


Nomad

Quote from: Hilltop366 on August 16, 2013, 08:51:03 AM
I'm thinking that a table saw with dado blade would be less prone to chipping out than a router because of the relation of the rotation of the blade verses the face of the board.

     A lot faster, too.
Buying a hammer doesn't make you a carpenter
WoodMizer LT50HDD51-WR
Lucas DSM23-19

Woodsrover

I've done a ton of it with just a router and have a whole bunch more to do.  It's slow and messy and you have to be careful, but it comes out pretty nice.  I just bought a dado bald for my table saw so will see how that works next.

brdmkr

You would be surprised how fast you can run ship lap with a dado blade in a table saw.  That would be the route I'd go if I didn't have a shaper (and I don't).
Lucas 618  Mahindra 4110, FEL and pallet forks, some cant hooks, and a dose of want-to

red oaks lumber

find someone in your area that does custom planing, it will be your best and probably your cheapest route.
if we were to do it for you it would cost you .20/ b.f. planed 4 sides with shiplap, and can do about 1800 b.f. per hour. the big question is how much is your time worth messing around with routers and tablesaws? just my veiws :)
the experts think i do things wrong
over 18 million b.f. processed and 7341 happy customers i disagree

Ianab

I do small amounts with a home made router table and a big 3 hp Makita router. Not fast, but it works.  So for making the back of a bookcase it's fine. If I was looking to fit out a whole room then I'd use that as excuse to buy a shaper, which is the right tool for the job.

Or, for a one off, find someone with a multi-head planer/moulder like Red Oaks suggests. One of my computer clients runs a couple of big Weinig 6 head machines. Just feed rough sawn boards in one end and finished profiles come out the other. Takes 4 or 5 guys to keep one fed, but it can put though a stack of boards in a shift.

Ian
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

WDH

If you plan to do it yourself, and you have to choose between a router or the dado in the table saw, the dado in the table is better hands down. 
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

Farmer Todd

Put a fence on the router and use a1"1/4 bit for a3/4 ship lap. Works great. Must use a big bit. You can ship lap them as fast as someone can nail them up

pineywoods

Last batch I made, I used one of them adjustable wobble type dado blades on a radial arm saw. Worked great. I have also used a straight molding bit mounted in the molding head on a woodmaster 518. I like that method because of the power feed. 
1995 Wood Mizer LT 40, Liquid cooled kawasaki,homebuilt hydraulics. Homebuilt solar dry kiln.  Woodmaster 718 planner, Kubota M4700 with homemade forks and winch, stihl  028, 029, Ms390
100k bd ft club.Charter member of The Grumpy old Men

Jim_Rogers

The most important thing to consider and do is to make the widths of these boards the same. I think it's called "sizing".

What I mean is if you do it with a router you have to have the finish width done first and then cut the lap out of the two sides. If you don't have the width done right first then one 8" wide board might not match another 8" wide board.

Running one side down a shaper or router table will cut one side or each side, great. But you still need to have the width right to begin with.
Running rough sawn lumber down a router or shaper table will make a nice groove/lap for sure.

Many years ago, I sent some flooring out to a guy to have it dried for the customer. The customer asked me who could plan and t&G it for him. I said talk to the guy drying it. He had a custom cabinet shop there at his place. And had a table saw and router/shaper set up.
So my customer hired this guy to plane it and t&G it for him.
Well, his crew, didn't size it first. When the installer tried to put it down after being in his house for three weeks "stabilizing" it was a nightmare.
Nothing matched in widths.
He had to send it out and have one side cut off and sized and then re-grooved so that all the 4" pieces matched. All the 3" pieces matched and so on and so on.
My customer was not happy at all with this guy.
And I never referred him to anyone else ever again because if this.

To do a ship lap project right, with a table saw, you could run one edge through to straighten it. Then run the other edge through to size it. Then put in the dado blade and run them all through again to cut the dadoes.

Unless you can put a saw blade on beside the dado that will cut it as well as dado it.
I'm not sure if that can be done, but I think it can be, if you have enough arbor on your table saw.

Having a machine that can do both sides at once eliminates this problem, as it usually sizes them correctly.

Jim Rogers
Whatever you do, have fun doing it!
Woodmizer 1994 LT30HDG24 with 6' Bed Extension

red oaks lumber

you guys all suggest routers and shapers but,you still need to plane it to thickness. a lunchbox planer will take forever. i guess if time is of no concern than the route your thinking of will work.
sorry, i'm a ramrod so my thinking is differant than most people. :)
the experts think i do things wrong
over 18 million b.f. processed and 7341 happy customers i disagree

WDH

Steve,

You also have some awesome toys to work with  ;D.
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

red oaks lumber

i know ;D the bad thing is they eat would like crazy so you have to work harder to keep up. :D
the experts think i do things wrong
over 18 million b.f. processed and 7341 happy customers i disagree

Brucer

One of my customers bought a bunch of my 7/8" side lumber, which he is going to turn into T&G. He already has a 3HP router with a set of T&G bits, so that's what he's going to use. He built himself a 5' long router table with a long fence and two featherboards -- one to hold the wood down and one to push the board in toward the fence.

I think the featherboards are the key. I saw a guy try to make shiplap with a hand-held router equiped with a fence. He didn't put enough pressure on the router on some of the boards and they didn't fit well at all.
Bruce    LT40HDG28 bandsaw
"Complex problems have simple, easy to understand wrong answers."

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