Neander flattening of large surface

Re: Neander flattening of large surface

Ed Mulligan, Cape Cod


>Andy �

Your aluminum level is plenty accurate enough for a straight edge. For proper size winding sticks, use two aluminum levels or (what I do) a couple of lengths of �� mdf ~ 4 feet x 4 inches.

Your bench will never be as flat as a granite surface. Even if you were able to achieve such flatness it would quickly be lost as the top moved with seasonal changes. You will probably have to flatten it again after it goes through an annual cycle, perhaps before that. If you are within 1/64 inch of flat I�d say you are good to go. If you want it better, use your #7 with a sharper iron and take thinner shavings.

To locate high spots, test the top with your level. Look for places where the level can be rocked on a bump. Mark the bump with pencil and take fine shavings there until it is reduced.

For me the key to an accurate surface is constant testing. Remove, test, remove, test, remove, test, ...

Also, as your skills and need for accuracy advance, you may want to revist your bench surface and make it better. If or when that happens you will have the experience and increased awareness to do a better job than you might achieve now.

Ed

Re: Neander flattening of large surface

VTAndy3


>Hi Ed,

Thanks for your response -- especially the wisdom about returning to it later after my skills have progressed.

So, my game plan is the following: spend another hour or two with the long level, locating some slightly high spots, take them down with the #7 set to take a superfine cut. Then, complete the rest of the work to assemble the bench (legs, stretchers). Assemble the bench, and get on with it. It's going to need re-flattening anyhow, so at this point it probably almost as good as I can get it.

Nice tip about using two long levels as mega winding sticks -- I'm going to pursue that route!

Best regards,

Andy

Re: Neander flattening of large surface

Todd O. Cronkhite Maine Native in FL. Exile :~(


>Andy,

One thing you might try is to take a piece of kids Sidewalk Chalk, lay it on it's side and complete color the top of your bench than start taking thin shavings. This will reveal low spots.

As was mentioned by Ed, don't go for "granite plate" flatness as you won't get it. You should e able to come very close tho, and that will be more than good enough. As Todd would say, don't be a "Machine Man".

Todd O.

Re: Neander flattening of large surface

Thom D


>Your base would have to be perfect and never move to have any hope of granite like accuracy.

What I use for winding sticks are those 36" long Lee Valley drawer slides. They are just the right shape, but I guess anything similar would work, including wooden winding sticks, though they are hard to convert into slides.

http://www.leevalley.com/hardware/page.aspx?c=2&p=32734&cat=3,43614,43616&ap=2

Re: Neander flattening of large surface

VTAndy3


>Here's the frustrating thing --- in Rob Cosman's "Rough to Ready" video, he stresses the importance of having an absolutely flat workbench top, which enables his technique of "burnishing" a board on the top in order to detect high spots (on the board).

It seems odd that a "hand tools only" video would teach a technique utilizing a bench that was almost certainly built using power jointers and planers.

I realize that the tools themselves are machine-made, but it still seems to me that making an entirely hand-tool-made bench should be part of the process of readying a hand-tool only shop!

It looks like I will have to settle for the bench having a top as flat as I can make it, and then learn a technique to true boards differently than Rob Cosman presents. Either that, or figure out somewhere that I can take this 6 foot long, 2 foot wide top to be flattened by machines!

-Andy

Re: Neander flattening of large surface

Thom D


>I doubt he flattened his top with machines. Did he say so. I have a pretty big jointer and planer, the next step up are car sized machines. I sure didn't flatten my bench top on one, I can't move it around easily enought o get it to the machines. even the sub-assemblies weighed a ton and were joined and flatened by hand. The machines leave marks and snipe even when well adjusted.

That method of spoting high and low areas seems a little bogus to me. I can see someone using it once or twice as a teaching aid, but your hand planes will readily detect high and low spots (cut and don't cut, rock and don't rock), and since the plane is all you have to cure these problems their capabilities are more relevant than your bench's. A flat bench is important to getting good results because it could otherwise tweak your stock. How flat depends on how big the pieces you plane are.

If you have a router you can use it with straight rails to flaten your bench. I don't really recomend it, but some of the benches in the ugly thread look like they might be difficult to plane and that could be a reason to proceed with a router.

Re: Wait till the base is finished

Barryvabeach


>Andy, maybe I misunderstood, but as I read it you have not yet finished the base. If so , I would stop dealing with leveling, and move on to the rest of the bench. Once it is finished and assembled you can then take whatever steps you want to level it and 1) it will be at a perfect height to work on and 2) any distortion caused by the base won't effect the result because you will be leveling the finished product . The only reason not to follow this approach is if you have a fitted end vise that needs to be pretty level with the top - but that is not the case with your bench. When you are completely finished and the bench is in its final location, you can probably do a variation of a router method. Make three straight peice of mdf or other wood ( hold them face to face and move back and forth to confirm they are true) then clamp two of them on either side of the bench and set the heights above the bench so they are even at all four corners. Now take the third board,which is slightly wider than the bench with the boards attached, and slide it up and down the length of the bench ( resting on the mdf boards) making notes on the bench of high spots and low spots. Do some planing then recheck. Stop when satisfied. Like others said , don't go for granite, but it is helpful not to have gentle hills or lows areas ( plus or minus 1/16 ) on the bench top because the peice you plane may conform to those curves. Good Luck Barry

Re: Neander flattening of large surface

Frank Mutchler in Colorado Springs


>Andy, I flattened my 3 1/4" thick 2' x 7' slab as best I could and realized that I was in over my head. The slab is ripped 10/4 Sugar (hard) Maple faced glued to approximate quarter sawn stock. I first glued up two 12" slabs and then glued the two large slabs together.

I located a local cabinet shop about 5 miles from my home and he ran the slab through his planer twice and then through his wide belt sander 3 times. Total shop time about 20 min. It's now FLAT and smooth and I'll finish it with my Veritas scraping plane. Total cost was $20.00 but my son & I did help him feed the slab through the machines. Picture is of bench prior to machine flattening.

Re: Neander flattening of large surface

VTAndy3


>Hi Frank,

Thanks.

I'm assuming that wide sanders are the usual method for flattening something this big. I'm not sure how I'd locate the right shop to do the job if I go that route, but I guess I'd open up the phone book and start calling: "Hello, I'm looking for someone who can flatten a 200 pound hunk of wood."

-Andy

Re: Neander flattening of large surface

Frank Mutchler in Colorado Springs


>Andy, the wide sander is used to remove a very small amount of wood...a few thousandth. The slab needs to be fairly flat prior to sanding. Most decent sized shops will have a planer that can handle at least 24" and if they aren't all that busy that welcome the small odd job. Most quotes I got from local shops were closer to $100.00 to do the job. The $20.00 rate was pure luck.

Loss leader

Bill Houghton, finally Spring!! in Sebastopol, CA


>or something similar, in fact. The cost of doing the accounting entry for that $20 would approach (or exceed, depending on the operation) $20, so I think you got the equivalent of one of those heavily discounted airline tickets at the last minute because the airplane seat was going along for the ride anyway, and they might as well have someone in it.

Re: Loss leader

Thom D


>100 I can see, 20 dollars is not worth the risk of moving the piece around. All the local places have 1 hour minimums, though whether they enforce them, I don't know. I have some "friend" pricing at metalworking places, but I do woodwork myself and haven't developed those kind of sources.

I used to have a Ryobi planer I could stick on the end and it moved itself down the board, while I shuffled horses.

In most cases it would seem a lot less trouble to hand plane the darn thing. If there are nasty highs use an electric plane or belt sander, froe, ... It takes a coarse set plane with a big mouth. All this talk about planing for thous, kinda looses the point one can actually pull off 1/16" passes as well. I made my first scrub plane for this job.

"Cut and don't cut, rock and don't rock"

David Barnett - SW Florida


>I do this, too, and it's become fairly automatic. I also tilt my planes on edge and look for the highs and lows visually and by feel, sometimes marking areas with a soft pencil.

Although I use winding sticks, it's to detect overall bias and to guide me in starting out. Flattening proper, though, usually starts when I've got a non-rocking side to lie atop my bench. Then, I usually 'normalize' the surface with diagonal criss-crossing strokes, followed by some long smoothing strokes. Next, I use a straightedge all over the top of the panel, rocking and pivoting, marking as I go. A 24" straightedge stays with me the rest of the process ( switch to my 12" Starrett ruler when I'm at the smoothing stage). This seems very quick and doesn't require much thought, believe me. It becomes one of those right-brain things in no time and I'm almost reluctant to stop. I'm kind of looking forward to an acclimation tweak after my bench has settled into its new home. I haven't needed to flatten it since I've been back in Florida, really, although I've fine tuned it a bit. You can work around a bench's idiosyncrasies for quite awhile without a major reflattening, esp. if you're doing smaller work as I have for the last couple or so years.

Thom, got a pic of that scrub?

Todd O. Cronkhite Maine Native in FL. Exile :~(


>I always enjoy seeing Craftsman made tools. Everything from Wayne's works of Art, to things so rude and crude(but functional) that they make a froe look like something that Wayne made.

One day I even intend to make some myself. Had hoped I'd already have done some, but other things and ideas always seem to delay me. Almost there tho!

Ernie probably still holds the record for the rudest, crudest, but functional tool (blockplane) that I've seen yet. Hey Ernie, that's a compliment. I hear tell that Bob uses it as a fishing weight while fishing in the Penobscot tho. ;~)

Todd O.