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Perhaps we should start a dedicated "Tool" forum. My Drill Bit thread and this one might be a good starting point...

I'm going to make a small kitchen table and a Bud in OR is sending me a slab of Fiddleback Maple ~ 40"x25"x2". I'm gonna need to smooth and flatten it a bit since he cut the slab w/ an Alaskan mill, but I will leave the "live" edges.

I don't know much about wood planes, and I've never really had any success operating one, but I understand that the old Stanley planes are highly regarded and they can readily be found on fleabay, but they're expensive. There are many types planes and if I wanted to start with 2 of them, what would be the best type(s)/brand to start with and do y'all have any tips for how to run one effectively? Yes, I'm aware they need to be sharp.

Or should I build a router box and have at it that way?

EDIT: In regard to finish, should I use straight Mineral Oil or BLO? I don't really want to use a stain, varnish or Poly. I want it to have a more natural appearance, but one that is easily maintainable and reasonably stain-resistant.

Thanks.

Wasn't the de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito a wood plane?

Very helpful. Thanks.

Here is the last known photo of Kobe Bryant, just before he boarded the helicopter he died in. Hope it helps.

Good idea on the tool forum. Probably will wind up with metal and wood subdivisions....

It might be helpful to know the dimensions of your slab...

Mills have power planes the ones I have seen will handle up to about a three foot wide plank.

I have seen smaller home shop ones up to about 16" widths.

Once you get into hand tools I think planes are a bit like squares and back saws. You can pay a lot for good stuff and there are only a few places to get them now...I am not sure I would go at a table surface with a little hand plane..

There is part of a wood working reference in the shop. I will see if planing is in it...

Lots of different approaches but no matter which way you go realize the fancy figure will make planing far more difficult. Doing it by hand planes would eliminate the need for a gym membership. It would also reduce the need for a dust collection system. And be much quieter.

Speed is all you add with machines.

And you could start slow by making your own planes...

For a table use a router box, made one for doing burls... works well and you can make it flat, which will be tricky with a power plane. One thing I think would be worthwhile is to invest in a proper bit. I used a 3/4 or 1 inch straight bit, but a planning bit has the cutters set on a steep angle and I think it would produce a smoother finish.

I'd find a local cabinet shop and run it thru their drum sander......

Find a cabinet shop with a big enough planner, or sander and save some time! That way will have time for the up coming, my plane is bigger than your plane posts! Just saying.

Has to go through a planer before the sander. The sander does not get it flat, just smooth. My small industrial sander does 28" wide flat stock.

Agree... Find a local wood shop with appropriate size planer and drum sander... Press the easy button...

I have a pretty good accumulation of Stanley planes. Sharp is definitely the key. A set of water stones or diamond hones and a Veritas sharpening jig are very helpful. If you don't want to put out the money for stones then adhesive backed sandpaper in progressively finer grit is great. I use the sandpaper on a scrap piece of granite counter top.

There are a lot of great videos on using hand planes. David Charlesworth has some very good videos but you don't need to buy videos, Youtube has lots of good instructional videos.

How you sharpen a plane depends on how you intend to use it. If you are planing an edge, jointing is the term, then a straight blade is fine. If you are surfacing a board then you'll want to incorporate some camber into the blade edge. I use a Stanley 3, 4 or 4 1/2 for surfacing and a 5, 6, 7 or 8 for jointing.

I would use BLO over mineral oil as a finish unless you're doing a cutting board. Then use a food grade mineral oil. BLO will not give the hard finish of poly but is easy to touch up. I like it on my work bench surface.

BLO is a garbage finish. Quality linseed or tung oil from a quality paint or art store is an entirely different thing...

justin10mm: What model sander is that DeWalt?

Stickfight: Yes indeed. Extremely helpful, thanks, you Basterd.

OldmanoftheSea: Thanks – great idea. My Bud in OR knows someone with a giant planer and is going to try and take the slab to him. I’ll still need to finish sand or plane as it will come to me rough – about the equivalent of 120 grit, I think. The slab measurements were listed in my initial post: ~ 40"x25"x2."

Sitka: Good point. Yep – no hurry w/ this project. & duly noted on the BLO – I mainly use it for axe hafts.

johnn: I was planning on looking into router boxes a bit more. Good advice on the router bits.

huntsman22: Not a bad idea.

Heym: Excellent point, but I’m afraid it won’t work. All ‘fire threads end up there at some point.

Orion2000: Will try to have my OR Bud get it planed on his end prior to shipping. The Easy Button is good.

mart: Thankyousir. I'll definitely look for instructional videos on the interwebs - good idea. & Yes, I realize that sharpening is a big part of planning and although I have a good set of stones, I’ll need to invest in a jig and either a few more stones, or the sandpaper, as you suggested. So, if you were just starting w/ planes and could only afford 2 Stanleys, which would you choose and why?

Sounds like you have nice equipment! My point was save time, by having someone like you do the job for him!

High Noon;
Good afternoon to you sir, I trust that all is as well as can be all things considered.

If I may do this first, my background in answering this question is spending 27 years in the kitchen cabinet and furniture industry.

For over 3 years I ran one of these as well as being Lead Hand in the work cell where we did the rough ripping, then molding, planing and sanding of all the cabinet door parts.



Please note that the safety stop bar is missing from that photo - it's a 2 head 37" Sandingmaster made in Holland.

Anyways for the last several years we also ended up with a 52" wide belt sander from Italy - funny the name escapes me at present but will come to me hours later when it no longer is relevant.

Most of my time in the cabinet industry I was involved with millwright work too, since that sort of thing has always made sense to me somehow.

In this instance I'll differ with Sitka Deer in that a good wide belt sander operator can very easily dimension wider pieces such as table tops - we did it daily because our planer was only 24" wide and we made tables which had wider tops.

The front head on a sander like the one in the photo is solid and when the operator runs something like an 80 Grit up front it's not an issue to remove up to a millimeter at a time - but that's about it.

We'd often have folks bring in various projects to get sanded and would do it as long as there wasn't an excess of glue on the laminated tops or the wood was really wet or sappy. In those instances it'd usually mean we'd kill a belt which back then was more than $50 each, having bought none in 6 years I'm not sure what they'd be worth today, sorry.

If it were me building a table, I'd canvas the local furniture and cabinet makers to see if anyone has a big enough machine to take it down to where I need it and what they'd need to do it.

In my experience the end result would be preferable to attempting to do something that large by hand.

Hopefully that was useful information sir, good luck with your project and stay well.

Dwayne

I think the best options are using a big machine if you can access one as others have said or build a router box sled deal and do it that way. The possibilities of screwing up the piece are endless with hand tools unless you are skilled at using them. From my experience trying to do a table top with a belt sander, you fix one dip, then create another, etc.etc.

Once you get it flat you can sand it with an orbital sander.....hard to mess it up too bad with one of those.

I recently made a small mantel from a piece of maple that was twisted a good 3/4" front to back. I took the slab, leveled it best I could on a job box and hot glued it down. I built a very crude router sled and planed the bottom side. Flipped it over and the top side was even easier now that it sat much flatter. I was skeptical, but it worked great. I used a 1" diameter bottom clean out bit and my average Bosch router spun it up just fine. Just make sure you go slow, overlap your router passes and don't try cutting on both the push and pull strokes. It took very little clean up with my orbital sander.