aggierailroad
Well-known member
Decided to consolidate everything from here on out to make it easier on me for posting purposes. I know, very selfish..
Fist, Black Hat comes from the pseudo name for my micro-brewery setup, my other major hobby that makes every other hobby easier
I wore a black cowboy hat at my wedding, a 100X Stetson, my pride and joy. The name kind of stuck and here we are.
On to the fun stuff:
This weekend I finally got around to making a router sled that will allow you to "plane" timbers, tabletops, slabs, you name it. It takes a router with a decent amount of horsepower, and ideally a large surface planing (bottom cleaning) bit like this. I only had a 3/4" rabbeting bit that worked fine, besides, my 1.5 HP router would struggle with anything larger than that.
Anyways, another reason I got started on this was because I was given a large pecan slab that had more waves than Hawaii. I think it was roughed out with one of those chainsaw sawmills by a friend twice removed.
Other side:
As you can see, it was pretty far out of "flat". I saw one of these jigs a few weeks ago, and having recently acquired some uni-strut and those nice fiberglass/resin C-Channel beams, I had a golden opportunity on my hands.
I just happened to have a piece of particle board (ideal because it is flat) a few inches longer than the wings on this slab. I first used the circular saw to plunge cut out the rough opening. A jig saw finished up the cross cuts.
Attach the beams (can be 1x4s or higher) using some screws and glue. The point is to minimize deflection to not have a parabolic slab! Those C-channel beams are incredibly rigid and light, perfect for this application.
Add the end caps to contain the jig from sliding off of your rails. I let the protrude on both the top and bottom to contain the router as well.
Once you get it all built, chuck up a bit and clean up your hole using the limits of the channel as a guide. Make several passes as needed to avoid tearout and overloading your router.
Voila!
Now, you need to get your rails parallel to each other. First step is to ensure that they have flat edges, use a jointer if you have one to true up your boards, or some straight steel/aluminum stock. I started by lightly clamping them to the table, which is flat (enough) for this purpose.
Then tie/clamp some heavy string or wire in an X across the rails. Elevate one leg of the X by one string diameter by wrapping a tail around and underneath.
It should look like this:
Now, adjust your rails using shims until the string just "kiss" each other in the middle.
Boom, now your straight rails are parallel with each other as well. Set your slab on the table and find which side has the most points of contact, if it's cupped, you want the cup facing down, or else you might just replane the shape back into it. I didn't need to secure the slab because it was just so darn heavy and never moved on me.
IF you don't have much to flatten, find the low point and set your bit to that depth plus a hair. I stuck to a max of 1/8-3/16 of depth per pass. It took 3 passes on the "top" side for me..
Here's a skim off the top (er, bottom) so that I could get it flat enough to concentrate on the top.
If you are pushing the router away from you, cut left to right, the rotation of the bit will pull it into the wood and help with control. Make a pass, move the jig up about half a diameter, and repeat. 100x...
You'll eventually get something like this going:
Clean up the "milling" marks with your restored 1917 Stanley #5 plane..
So that you can take off your bulky ear protection and mask and make shavings, instead of sawdust...
Flip it over and repeat. Here's a shot showing just how far out the top was. It was curled in both directions.
Caution, this process can make some sawdust... About 5 gallons worth, tightly packed.
But it does give excellent results:
The clamp was just gluing on a bit of tearout I had from the split.
Thanks for reading, there's always more to come. This technique isn't new, don't credit me with coming up with it. IF someone was to make a wavy cutting board, a small one of these would flatten one up in a hurry!
Fist, Black Hat comes from the pseudo name for my micro-brewery setup, my other major hobby that makes every other hobby easier
I wore a black cowboy hat at my wedding, a 100X Stetson, my pride and joy. The name kind of stuck and here we are.On to the fun stuff:
This weekend I finally got around to making a router sled that will allow you to "plane" timbers, tabletops, slabs, you name it. It takes a router with a decent amount of horsepower, and ideally a large surface planing (bottom cleaning) bit like this. I only had a 3/4" rabbeting bit that worked fine, besides, my 1.5 HP router would struggle with anything larger than that.
Anyways, another reason I got started on this was because I was given a large pecan slab that had more waves than Hawaii. I think it was roughed out with one of those chainsaw sawmills by a friend twice removed.
Other side:
As you can see, it was pretty far out of "flat". I saw one of these jigs a few weeks ago, and having recently acquired some uni-strut and those nice fiberglass/resin C-Channel beams, I had a golden opportunity on my hands.
I just happened to have a piece of particle board (ideal because it is flat) a few inches longer than the wings on this slab. I first used the circular saw to plunge cut out the rough opening. A jig saw finished up the cross cuts.
Attach the beams (can be 1x4s or higher) using some screws and glue. The point is to minimize deflection to not have a parabolic slab! Those C-channel beams are incredibly rigid and light, perfect for this application.
Add the end caps to contain the jig from sliding off of your rails. I let the protrude on both the top and bottom to contain the router as well.
Once you get it all built, chuck up a bit and clean up your hole using the limits of the channel as a guide. Make several passes as needed to avoid tearout and overloading your router.
Voila!
Now, you need to get your rails parallel to each other. First step is to ensure that they have flat edges, use a jointer if you have one to true up your boards, or some straight steel/aluminum stock. I started by lightly clamping them to the table, which is flat (enough) for this purpose.
Then tie/clamp some heavy string or wire in an X across the rails. Elevate one leg of the X by one string diameter by wrapping a tail around and underneath.
It should look like this:
Now, adjust your rails using shims until the string just "kiss" each other in the middle.
Boom, now your straight rails are parallel with each other as well. Set your slab on the table and find which side has the most points of contact, if it's cupped, you want the cup facing down, or else you might just replane the shape back into it. I didn't need to secure the slab because it was just so darn heavy and never moved on me.
IF you don't have much to flatten, find the low point and set your bit to that depth plus a hair. I stuck to a max of 1/8-3/16 of depth per pass. It took 3 passes on the "top" side for me..
Here's a skim off the top (er, bottom) so that I could get it flat enough to concentrate on the top.
If you are pushing the router away from you, cut left to right, the rotation of the bit will pull it into the wood and help with control. Make a pass, move the jig up about half a diameter, and repeat. 100x...
You'll eventually get something like this going:
Clean up the "milling" marks with your restored 1917 Stanley #5 plane..
So that you can take off your bulky ear protection and mask and make shavings, instead of sawdust...
Flip it over and repeat. Here's a shot showing just how far out the top was. It was curled in both directions.
Caution, this process can make some sawdust... About 5 gallons worth, tightly packed.
But it does give excellent results:
The clamp was just gluing on a bit of tearout I had from the split.
Thanks for reading, there's always more to come. This technique isn't new, don't credit me with coming up with it. IF someone was to make a wavy cutting board, a small one of these would flatten one up in a hurry!
I know MDF will tend to sag over time, hence my extra 3 standards I can add, but the 
