Planer Sled

While I am in between 'big' projects, I decided to make a 'quick' kitchen table to replace our cheap table that we bought for $60 when we first got married 7 years ago. The top will be made up of solid panels, and the lumber I had for the top is not flat, so I need to flatten it before gluing up the top.

The boards are wide enough that I don't want to rip them all done to 6" to send them through the jointer for flattening. Since I lack any hand tools to flatten them the next easiest solution is the planer. I decided to make up a quick planer sled to run the boards through the planer and flatten them.

A planer sled supports the board you want to flatten as you pass it through the planer, causing the planer to only take off the 'high' spots on the board and flatten it out. If you send a cupped board through a planer, the planer will compress the 'cupping' of the board as it planes, taking off the 'high' and 'low' spots and not flattening the board, only reducing it's thickness. A planer sled will prevent the planer from compressing the 'cup' and force the planer to correctly flatten the board.

First - dig around the workshop and find a flat board that is wider and longer than the boards you want to flatten. I found a piece of melamine shelving that fit the bill. You will be fastening your boards to flatten to this flat piece and running them through the planer, so it has to be narrow enough to fit through your planer.

Next, glue, nail, screw or otherwise fasten a back onto one end of your flat board - this piece will keep the board you are flattening from sliding off the back of the sled.

Your sled is now complete - let's put it to use.

Now, place the board you want to flatten onto the sled and determine where you need to add support to the board. In the board below you can see I need support in the middle and on the left hand edge.

Now, flip the board over and add some gobs of glue from a hot glue gun. I made the gobs about 3/4" in diameter. Too much glue is better than not enough.

Flip the board back over before the glue dries and press it down in place on the planer sled. Wait a minute or two for the glue to dry, then you are ready to send the board through the planer. In the picture below you can see a bit of glue sticking out the side of the board.

Now, send the board through the planer. You can see in the picture below the planer is only removing material from the 'high' points on the board - the center of the board in this case. If I did not use a planer sled, the board would have been smooshed flat as it was sent through the planer, but then bounced back up when it came out the other end. Afterwards I would have a thinner, but still cupped board.

After a number of passes through the planer I have one side of the board flat. I can now flip the board over and run it through the planer to flatten the other side.

To separate the board from the sled, use a old chisel to pry it off, then use that same old chisel to pop off the gobs of glue. Obviously you'll want to remove that glue before sending your board back through the planer.

Bandsaw Circle Cutting Jig

As I posted yesterday, the next thing I needed to do for my rocketship project was to build a circle cutting jig for the bandsaw and router. I figure they'd take about the same time to build, but the bandsaw will cut quicker than the router, so I decided to start with that one and see if the router is required or now.

In the Google 3D Warehouse, you can find a sketchup model of this jig.

Very easy to build.

First, find some 3/4" plywood and cut it a few inches larger than the width of your bandsaw table. In my case, 17". It'll be easier on you if the piece is squared up, so do that before going on.


You'll need to attach a couple of supports to the plywood that you will use to clamp the table in place. See the locations in the picture or the sketchup model. Make sure they are parallel to the edges of the plywood. I found it easiest to use a pin nailer to hold the pieces in place before I flipped the table over and counter sunk some screws in to hold them permanently. I didn't bother gluing them in place, the screws will be enough to hold them.


Next, clamp the table in place on your bandsaw, and either cut some 2xs to use as legs or use an adjustable height stand to provide support at the far end of the table. You are almost done.




Draw a line perpendicular to the center of the blade, parallel to the edge of the table. This will mark the center of your circle.

Now start cutting - almost. Measure out from the blade half the diameter of your circle and drill a hole on the line matching the size of a finish nail you've got lying around the shop. Drill a similar hole in your circle blank. Drill the hole half the diameter of the circle from the edge of the blank - you'll put the nail in the blank so that it is sticking out of the blank, then put that into the hole in the jig table. Your wood blank should just rest against the bandsaw blade. Turn the bandsaw on and spin your blank around and you've got your circle.

Mortise Jig #2

The legs in the bunk bed each need two 1-1/8"x 4-1/8" x 1-1/4" mortises to recieve the safety rails for the top bunk. Though I could cut these with the router using an edge guide, I prefer to use a patterning bit and a custom jig to make sure I don't make any mistakes.

I use my Freud FT2000e plunge router, along with the template guide kit and 3/8" spiral upcut bit. The 3/4" (external diameter) adapter means I need to add 3/16" on each side of the mortise template to get it the correct size.

So the 1-1/8" width needs to be 1-1/2" in the template, the 4-1/8" needs to be 4-1/2". Here's a sketchup model of the jig I made up using 5/8" hardboard.

Here are the pieces cut and ready to be glued up and below you can see the first mortise cut and the jig clamped to the leg ready for the next mortise.

Custom Mortise Jig in Sketchup

A few days ago I introduced a jig I use for creating mortises in table/bench/chair legs. Since google has finally released sketchup to run under Windows Vista, I took a bit of time to create a sketchup model of the jig.






I have uploaded the model to the sketchup warehouse, so you can find it there, look for models owned by 'markswoodworking'. Or click on the image below.