Planing the keel stock

[Alan Peck]

I picked up my white oak keel stock from the freight terminal today. This piece of wood is downright intimidating to an amateur who works alone. 2" thick x 10 1/2" wide x 15 ' long, weight 99 lbs. What was I thinking when I thought it would be a simple matter to plane it down to the required 1 3/8" thickness and a maximum of 8" wide x 12' 6" long. This brings the weight down to only 43 lbs.

I should have considered how much extra weight there would be in buying it in rough dimensions. Anyway, now I have the wood. Do you experienced guys out there have any thoughts on how you put a 100 lb 15' piece of wood through a home planer?


I guess this is what happens when you concentrate on all the little details and forget the big picture.

[oakman]

Generous outfeed and infeed tables are a must to begin with. Second for the weight they should be roller feed or else you will have a difficult time overcoming the friction.

Lastly, 5/8" is a lot to take off by planer with that size board, something of the order of 20 or 30 passes. Perhaps it's time to look into an adze? Even working it down with a 2" chisel would be faster than planing. You can take off a 1/4" in one pass this way. Well maybe the chisel is a lot of work but I would rather swing the mallet for half a day than do all those passes through the planer.

Even an ax to chop and a slick to slice would speed things up.
Good luck

Oakman

[Jim Ledger]

You'd be much better off looking for a shop with a large machine and paying to have it planed. With two men and a suitable machine it wouldn't be a very big job.

No matter what kind of infeed and outfeed tables you rig, if the planer lacks the weight, it won't be able to feed the plank.

[bob easton]

... Lastly, 5/8" is a lot to take off by planer with that size board, something of the order of 20 or 30 passes. ...


Some people scoff at using a Stanley #40 scrub plane for thickness reduction, but I've had very good success with one, even with hardwoods. At 1/8 inch per pass, it would need only 5 passes. At 15-20 minutes per pass, could be done in less time than carrying it off to a mill somewhere.

[oakman]

Very true, you would have to feed the stock yourself at home with a small planer, but it is possible.

Scrub plane would work, or one of the large old portercables with the spiral cutter heads or similar.

Oakman

[outofthenorm]

I just did exactly that job last weekend. 8/4 x 10in x 16 ft rough white oak, destined to become my new rubrails. Had to plane down to 1.5 inch thickness.

First I sawed the blank to the curve, with a handyman circular saw and a new Freud ripping blade, leaving 1/4 inch allowance. Made me nervous, but turned out to be no problem at all. Could have cut closer.

Tried passing it througth the little Ryobi planer, but no go. As Jim said, not strong enough to feed. So I dug out my electric hand plane, set it to cut 1/16 in per pass and had it down to within 1/16- 1/32 of finished in about 45 minutes. Final planing by hand with a Stanley #7.

Half a day's work. I have another similar board to rip up for capping rail stock, 1 x 1.25. I'll use the same technique.

- Norm

[Bob Cleek]

I just took about 3/32" off a 12"X18" piece of soft mahogany plank that was cupped last weekend. I figured it would be easier to plane it flat with my hand plane than roll out my big 220V 15" Delta/Rockwell thickness planer and set it up. (As usual, everybody else's crap always seems to breed in the shop and piles up on top of my tools, even though the "deal" was this time around that the shop was to be my sole preserve!) Well, the hand plane did the job just fine, but truth be told, it would have been a LOT easier and faster to flatten that hunk of wood on the thickness planer. It's one thing to think "Neanderthal" and quite another to DO it! LOL

I'd expect that with a hunk of keel stock like that, you'd really be far wiser to take it to your local mill or a well equipped cabinet shop and have them run it through their larger thickness planer for you. It's a simple and quick job for a big machine like a millworks will have on hand. More importantly, as opposed to hand planing, you will be certain that the piece is not only the right thickness down the whole length, but also that the top and bottom flats are truly parallel. You can do an accurate job making a hunk of wood FLAT with decent and properly selected hand planes and winding sticks, but making sure they are perfectly PARALLEL to each other takes a lot more care and skill. You don't want to end up with a boat with a keel that takes a kink to port or starboard when you're all done!

As said, moving a hunk of wood of that size (and it's not THAT big, really) through one of those lunchbox planers is impossible really because the wood is heavier than the machine and the machine is going to have to be firmly bolted to something heavy. Then your in and outfeed rollers are going to have to be up to the job as well. Only then do you get to the question of horsepower. A little lunchbox planer probably won't have the muscle to suck a timber that size through itself and even if it does, you're going to have to do it again and again in little bitty bites. Fact is, portable thickness planers really aren't suitable for much beyond light duty. For that, they work, but for this, you need an "industrial strength" machine. Do it once, do it right, hire a licensed contractor! It won't cost much and you'll be able to put the time saved into building your boat.

[Dave Gray]

Be prepared for some movement so don't take it all the way down to your finish dimensions right away. Rough it out, let it sit a couple of days, and come back to it.

[StevenBauer]

So you need to take 5/8" off, right? Set your circular saw to 1/2" (or a little more if you are brave) and make a series of cuts across the board every 1/2" or so. Then use a big chisel (or slick if you have one) to knock off all the ridges then finish up with a power planer. Much faster than planing the whole 5/8.


Steven

[Bob Smalser]

You probably already know this, but however you reduce its thickness, don't assume it's perfectly seasoned and take half the reduction from each face.

[john welsford]

This might sound odd, but it works. If you have one of those little "lunchbox" portable planers, they wont feed the plank through the planer, but they will feed the planer over the plank. Put your plank on two sawhorses with the ends overhanging maybe 3 ft. Pick the planer up with it open enough to put it over the plank end, close it until the rollers contact then back off a half turn and fire it up. Then wind the handle closing it up until it takes off along the plank planing as it goes. When its approaching a sawhorse, pick the end up until its gone past, and do the same at the other end. Take care that the cord is free and not caught up.
Just before it gets to the far end of the plank open the "mouth" up again so it stops feeding and switch it off.

Plane the ends flat with a hand plane or hand power plane and repeat. Try for light cuts. If the plank is of very uneven thickness you may have to spend a bit of time on it with a hand plane knocking the bumps off.

John Welsford. Been there done that.





I picked up my white oak keel stock from the freight terminal today. This piece of wood is downright intimidating to an amateur who works alone. 2" thick x 10 1/2" wide x 15 ' long, weight 99 lbs. What was I thinking when I thought it would be a simple matter to plane it down to the required 1 3/8" thickness and a maximum of 8" wide x 12' 6" long. This brings the weight down to only 43 lbs.

I should have considered how much extra weight there would be in buying it in rough dimensions. Anyway, now I have the wood. Do you experienced guys out there have any thoughts on how you put a 100 lb 15' piece of wood through a home planer?


I guess this is what happens when you concentrate on all the little details and forget the big picture.

[Figment]

I always kinda wondered if that would work. nice.

[Cliff B]

This might sound odd, but it works. If you have one of those little "lunchbox" portable planers, they wont feed the plank through the planer, but they will feed the planer over the plank. Put your plank on two sawhorses with the ends overhanging maybe 3 ft. Pick the planer up with it open enough to put it over the plank end, close it until the rollers contact then back off a half turn and fire it up. Then wind the handle closing it up until it takes off along the plank planing as it goes. When its approaching a sawhorse, pick the end up until its gone past, and do the same at the other end. Take care that the cord is free and not caught up.
Just before it gets to the far end of the plank open the "mouth" up again so it stops feeding and switch it off.

Plane the ends flat with a hand plane or hand power plane and repeat. Try for light cuts. If the plank is of very uneven thickness you may have to spend a bit of time on it with a hand plane knocking the bumps off.

John Welsford. Been there done that.


I can testify that this truly works. Make sure the planer is well tuned, with sharp blades and no need to push boards thru. I little hi-speed Ryobi or similar works fine. It's fun to do, albiet more useful that belt sander races.