Squaring lumber

Build a sled to run through the planer. Put the twisted board on the sled and shim the spots where the board lifts off the sled. That way the planer’s feed rollers can’t push the board flat as it goes through. Once the top side is flat you can flip it over and send it through the planer without the sled.

-- Coffee is best with a fine layer of sawdust on top. -- http://www.north40custom.com

If your board is not too long, say under 4 ft, you can use a planer sled.
It’s basically a flat board with a lip sticking up on the leading end. This will keep the planer
from feeding your board and leaving the sled behind.

Place your board to be planer on the sled and then slide a small wedge(s) under the board to stabilize it.
Then run it through the planer. That should get you one flat side. Flip it over and plane it as you normally would.

If you are worried about your wedges falling out you can temporarly hot glue them.

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

Ditto to the above posts but I use a slightly different method. I use an mdf sled and put small screws (just make sure they don’t go through the sled) into the sled to level the board and keep it from rocking. I put 1/2” cleats at the front and back of the board to hold it on the sled and take small 1/64” passes until this side is flat. Then, as Gary and Peter said, flip it over and finish planing the back side of the board.

To be honest I prefer using my 6” jointer to flatten my rough stock but I am limited to boards that are less than 6”.

Hope this helps.

-- With God's help all things are possible- even woodworking. Woodworking is not just a hobby, it is an (expletive deleted) expensive hobby.

One day, I had the same kind of problem – wide boards that had to be face planed before thickness planing. After just about loading the boards back in the van and taking them to a cabinet shop, I decided to give it a whirl with an old hand plane I had scored off eBay. Surprisingly, the job went very smoothly and the board was absolutely true.

Some outstanding hand planes can be picked up on eBay for a song, and the beauty is that you are not limited to a particular width (of course, you do have to run the board through a thickness planer to get it to the right thickness… so 12 inches might be your max for a suitcase-style model).

I posted instructions on how to face plane over at my blog – you can see the instructions at http://tomsworkbench.com/?cat=19.

And, yes I can face plane a decent sized maple or oak board in about 5 minutes a side… real easy stuff to do and master.

Hope this helps…

-- Tom's Workbench - http://tomsworkbench.com

Here is an article that uses handplanes:

http://www.wkfinetools.com/contrib/dCohen/z_art/prepBoard/prepBoard1.asp

Regards from Perth

Derek

-- Building and Reviewing Tools at http://www.inthewoodshop.com

This morning, I finished the tutorial on how to edge plane with hand planes. You can see both face and edge planing techniques on my blog.

-- Tom's Workbench - http://tomsworkbench.com

Hand planes work well. Make sure they are sharp.

-- Thos. Angle, Owyhee Design, Oregon