How many plan your own lumber?

[Gary roofner]

Do most members have a surface planer?

If so how do you dry your boards?

[dwaine c. schneider]

I used to do quite a bit of saving logs and taking them to saw mills but prior to band saw millthe controll on a 12 ft board was not the best maybe  1 1/4 this on one end and 2" on the other end. that made for a lot ofpasses through the planer, Then was stacked and stickered, in Iowa with humidity the stacks need to be turned every 6 monts, thats a lot of work .  When it got down toabout 8 to 10% I would  plane it to about 13/16  and store i.  nside to dry.  fans blowing though it for about 3 months.  I tried to have about 1000 bf inside.. Then One sad time I bought some rugh cut that at ine time had been Kiln dried but them became infested with powder post bettels and ended up loosing every thing and haveing my shop Chemically cleaned..  Since will not bring a board on the place that isnt recently KILN dried.  I still buy it and have it planed to 13/ 16 and straight lined then do the finish planing as desired.  I do quite a bit of furniture building and would not be without it, The planer'''

[Larwyn]

I have a small Delta thickness planer and use it to help me dimension lumber.  But I just re-dimension off the shelf lumber, I do no drying.  I do occasionally cut a piece of of oak or pecan from dead fall but only in very small quantities which I dry in the rafters of my shop.

[Johnny D. Rich]

I have a Makita 13" planer. I use it when I need to. Such as when building the crib I needed 1" thick pieces of wood. Home Depot and Lowes don't sell that, neither does Dixieline. My local hardwood supplier sells 1.75" and .75" thicknesses. Thus the need for my planer. I bought the thick stuff, scribed a line close to the 1" mark, took it to the band saw, and sliced it in two. After that, I took it to the planer to bring it down to 1" thickness. As a bonus, the waste wood was able to be planed down to a nice 1/2" piece for use on a future project.

 

As a rule, if I can shave off a thin slice to use on something else before planing I always do, especially if it's a nice exotic or something.

 

I do plan my lumber too, not very well sometimes, but I try. :)