dealing with cupped wood

Since you got it all tied down in your truck, I can relieve you of all the grief of flattening those boards!!!

-- Matt Garcia Wannabe Period Furniture Maker, Houston TX

That is some good wood. Don’t you burn it now

I think ripping warped and twisted boards down is the best approach. After that you can plane it. You MUST make a sled or you’ll just end up with thin twisted boards.

For a sled, I just use a piece of plywood slightly larger than the board and put shims to support the twisted board and then screw the board to the plywood, and plane the up side flat. Once you get that side flat, remove the sled and plane the opposite side. (Make sure you put the screws in a location that will be cut off or won’t show in the completed project.)

-- Joe

You don’t need a sled if you have a jointer or access to a jointer. Planers make wood thin, jointers make wood flat.

-- Kyle Edwards, http://www.sawmillnc.com, Iron Station , NC (near Charlotte)

Thats to good of wood to burn, build a sled for your planer.

-- CJIII Future cabinetmaker

Rip and joint the straight cupped boards. The twisted ones, hunt down
the problem areas and crosscut through the worst distortions.

I’ve become pretty good at making these assessments with my eyeballs
but I still usually use a 78” level and sometimes winding sticks to help
me decide. A lumber crayon comes in handy too for marking out the
cuts. Sometimes a rip cut to get around flaws runs from corner to
corner in the board. You’ll make some odd cuts, but you’ll get a higher
yield of top quality lumber.

Joe and Loren,

thanks for the tips. Joe when you screw down the boards do you just counter sink them correct..

Loren, due to these being mostly short boards I’d like to avoid crosscuts but I’ll give them a better look before I start planing it sounds like the key is to have a plan before you plane.

Joe

-- Second Chance Saw Works http://www.secondchancesawworks.com Blog: Positive Rake http://www.positiverake.com

By all means, counter sink (the sled) or else you’ll scratch your planer big time.

-- Joe

Yea for sure I don’t want to do that. I retrofitted a bird hexicoil cutting head on it just a month ago and so far it’s been a great.

Joe

-- Second Chance Saw Works http://www.secondchancesawworks.com Blog: Positive Rake http://www.positiverake.com