# What kind of wood is this? AND.... I got a PLANER!!!!



## AngieO (Jul 9, 2012)

Hey! It's me… AGAIN! I was working in the shop today and I found these two boards.

Wait… First let me say….. I HAVE A PLANER!!! It is the new 'love of my life' (right behind my kids of course…LOL). That thing is STINKIN awesome!!! I love it!!!

So… anyhow… back to my story… I was playing around with the 'love of my life' in the shop today and I found some interesting wood. This first one is the one I wanted to plane down to see what was under all the yuck. The second one I think was an old piece of barn wood that my daughter wanted to plane. I don't know what either one is. I guess I need to get on google and fine me a chart to show me what the different kinds of wood are.

These are all from my haul I got a couple of weekends ago. All free.

In this pic it looks kinda purple… but I thought it looked more red. 









Here's another pic that was taken outside. Looks like a different board almost. 









And here is the barn wood that Bre picked to play with. Here are two pics of before. 


















And… why this thing is the 'love of my life'. Here is how beautiful it looks now.










There must be something wrong with me. LOL… but I'm so stinkin in love with that tool. And in love with the results it produces.

So… can anyone tell me what kind of wood this is?


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## Dal300 (Aug 4, 2011)

Be careful dear lady, 
Planer blades are expensive and it doesn't take much to nick one.

Glad you got some nice wood and a planer! New stuff is always fun!


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## wlkjr (Mar 12, 2013)

The first one looks like black walnut and the other looks like some kind of cedar siding, but not Eastern red cedar.


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## jcsterling (Aug 1, 2008)

black walnut and yellow pine.


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## jcsterling (Aug 1, 2008)

ya know I think wkljr is right on the cedar. western red


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## AngieO (Jul 9, 2012)

I had a good friend come over and show me a lot about the planer. Then he came back over and helped me set mine up. He cut himself at least once on them.

You really think it could be yellow pine? I planed a bunch of pine and this is a dark brown.


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## woodshaver (Mar 21, 2009)

Angie, The first board looks like walnut to me. 
Congrat's on the new planer! Be carful of metal, stones and any other objects in the wood when planning old boards. If your planning to do a lot of old board planning you might want to invest in a metal detector. 
Don't stand behind the planer when planning.

a1Jim, posted this web site a while back. It might be of some help to you!
http://hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/


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## AngieO (Jul 9, 2012)

Does the cedar you guys are talking about have any aroma? This has none.


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## kdc68 (Mar 2, 2012)

*AngieO*

*+1 Dallas*... any debris that might have been on the barn wood would nick your new planer blades

*+1 jcsterling*...looks like walnut for sure and I think it's yellow pine for the other


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## DanKrager (Apr 13, 2012)

+1 on wlkjr. Black walnut and (probably red) cedar. You can tell a lot by smell. Cedar has a pungent smell that is almost sharp in my nose. It should remind you of a cedar closet. Walnut has a rich odor tending toward sweet. Walnut has a toxin that makes some people react and walnut sawdust makes good pet bedding (under a blanket) because it repels bugs. Walnut shavings should not be used in a horse stall because it reacts to horse urine releasing a gas that is poisonous to horses, harmless to everything else. Walnut is precious and was used a lot in very fine furniture and as such is in the same class as mahogany. It responds to tooling well, and is especially nice to carve. Cedar is soft but great for outdoor furniture because it is so rot resistant.

Yes. You are walking through a cow pasture running used lumber through a power planer. Sooner or later you're going to step in it. That generally means a new set of blades prematurely, either from nasty nicks or the very aggressive wear caused by dirt. I've noticed that a lot of LJ'ers here plane their used lumber by hand to avoid the expensive planer repairs. Just be careful to get as much dirt off as you can. I won't run used lumber through my planer, even if I had replaceable carbide insert head. I've had too many expensive repairs in spite of my best "cleaning" efforts.

Congratulations! Best of luck.
DanK


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## kdc68 (Mar 2, 2012)

*AngieO*... Western Red Cedar is *not* aromatic….While Eastern Red Cedar is…


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## AngieO (Jul 9, 2012)

woodshaver… that's a great help. I bookmarked it. Also… my friend talked to e about getting a wand. I checked the wood over pretty good.

I will NEVER stand behind the planer when planing. LOL. He drilled that into my head and told me some stories that will make sure I never will.

I planed down a bunch of pine after the barn wood. I didn't notice it had any affect on the blades.

Am I missing something? I have all kinds of pine. Some that I would have thought was yellow pine. This board looks MUCH darker. Maybe I should get a better pic of it.


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## a1Jim (Aug 9, 2008)

I agree with #1 being walnut but the last one could be redwood. If it were cedar you would defiantly smell it for sure.


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## AngieO (Jul 9, 2012)

I had a really nice stack of cedar. My shop still smells like it. Even with my stuffy nose

I am a youtube fanatic. I love to watch youtube videos on woodworking. WoodWhisperer, Steve Ramsey WWMM, Colin Knecht, Mathias Wandel, John Heisz, A guy from here who's site is called SailingandSuch and stumpynubs… just to name a few. I've watched video after video. And plenty of random videos about planers. I've wanted one since last summer so I've kinda done my homework. Plus I've had two really good teachers. I do appreciate the concern…. I'm sure I will make mistakes and end up having to replace blades. I guess it comes with the territory. I'm just glad that I have friends to help me along… including you guys. 

So if western red cedar isn't aromatic then it could be it. There is no smell to it at all, that I can tell. But I also wondered if it could be redwood after looking at that chart.


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## gizmodyne (Mar 15, 2007)

You aren't in the right geo-zone but it looks like douglas fir.


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## kdc68 (Mar 2, 2012)

*AngieO*...Both types of cedar will have an aroma when freshly cut. Western's aroma will fade rather quickly, but on the other hand Eastern Red Cedar is the aromatic type. Eastern Red Cedar is used to line closets and such to prevent moths..
With everyone's posts, I may be wrong about the yellow pine….I'm not sure about it now….Walnut for sure for the other one…..


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## woodshaver (Mar 21, 2009)

This may be of some help! 
And later you might like to make one of these. 
http://lumberjocks.com/projects/70562


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## JoeinGa (Nov 26, 2012)

So how come this post has been on here for nine hours and no one has asked…
What planer did you get? 

And dont ask me about the wood, I already proved my ignorance about identifying wood here before


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## OnlyJustME (Nov 22, 2011)

i was just about to say the same thing Joe. What planer did you get?


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## AngieO (Jul 9, 2012)

Lol. I kinda wondered too. 
I got the Dewalt DW734 15 amp 3-blade planer









I love it!!!


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## HorizontalMike (Jun 3, 2010)

Very cool! That makes "plane" sense *;-)*

That said, with a smirk, what you may eventually want do is build a planer table with infeed and outfeed ramps. How long these ramps need to be all depends on how long of lumber you will be planing on a regular basis. I built mine way…y long because I needed it for planing my 90in workbench tops (my first "real" project). You can find a variety of plans with a simple Google search, or even do a search on LJs.

Both individual ramps should be just over 51% of the longest board you plan to plane. This helps eliminate snipe.

BTW, here is what I did: http://lumberjocks.com/projects/34959


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## AngieO (Jul 9, 2012)

I was thinking about that yesterday. I checked yours out. I like it. So… Is your table something that you put up on your workbench when it's time to use and then can lean it against a wall when not being used? That could work.

I'm actually needing to make a stand for my table saw and for my new planer. And… Eventually would like to build a router table. But for now I'm just looking to make a stand for it.

My temporary fix…. I took this old sewing matching table, cut off the bottom 2 1/2" off the legs and drilled some holes. This doubles right now as a stand for my router table or table saw. And my Workmate table is where I'm using my planer for now. 








Right now my table saw is on the sewing machine table (BTW… Rescued it from the dump…lol) and my router is sitting on a little computer desk that I was going to pitch. It works good enough for now. 









As I worked on projects yesterday that required me to first use the planer, then the table saw, then the miter saw, my router and then finally to my workbench to sand, glue, clamp and use my nail gun… It showed me a lot about how I should lay out my workshop for better workflow. I've got soooo many projects rolling around in my head. I need to write them all down, throw them in a hat and just pick one, finish it and move on the the next. Lol


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## AngieO (Jul 9, 2012)

Oh… One more thing. The pic with the planer… That's just where I moved it when I cleaned up and had to shut the garage door. It was totally awesome to open the overhead door, drag that thing to the door and let all (well, most) of the shavings end up out in the driveway. Got to enjoy the beautiful weather, the sunshine and have more room.


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## HorizontalMike (Jun 3, 2010)

Angie,
I noticed that your bench is on casters and at nearly the same height as your planer. You might try matching the two in height and concentrate on just an outfeed ramp. The one thing that you may not have noticed on my feed ramps is that they each are setting on four threaded bolts with washers and secondary nuts. This allows me to fine tune the ramp. Ideally each ramp should be just "slightly higher" on the outer ends than it is at the planer. Mine are 4 1/2ft long and that difference is just about 1/8in, not much at all.

BTW, I am not exempt from getting snipe on my shorter pieces and some tuning of the metal planer ramps may also be needed. And my planer "table" is still sitting on the concrete, right next to my wood pile. I have a couple of foam knee-pads when using it. A bit of a PITA, but not too much. If I need to, I can just lift the planer off of the "table" and then just turn the table up on edge for storage if space becomes tight. I can reach the planer with a 20ft DC hose, and that really helps with the mess.


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## jap (Oct 10, 2012)

I think it is walnut for the first, and a very confident that the second is western red cedar.


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## OnlyJustME (Nov 22, 2011)

Great little planer Angie. I have the same one. Tested it with about 100 bdft of african mahogany just recently and it worked like a champ. The only down side i found was i could have used a wider one for my glued up panels.


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## AngieO (Jul 9, 2012)

HorizontalMike… that's kinda what I was thinking about too. I already planned on using the bench as an outfeed from my table saw. I've been waiting to build a stand for the table saw till I was able to get the casters put on the workbench. I can do the same thing for the planer. Nice shop 

OnlyJustME… I'm liking the planer as well. Having a blast. In bed not feeling great still so I've been looking at lots of projects and wondering about some of the glue ups I'll be doing. I'll definitely be making some projects that I wouldn't have attempted before.

Thanks for the help on identifying the wood guys!


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## WDHLT15 (Aug 15, 2011)

Pardon me for disagreeing, but I think that the first pic of wood is elm. The second one does look like western red cedar. Can you take a couple more close-up pics of the first sample? Elm has wavy bands in the latewood that gives the grain a distinct pattern.


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## funfun (Apr 24, 2013)

Agree think its fir, in mho. : )


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