On Thursday, August 28, 2003, at 12:40 PM, Brent Beach provides some 
amendments:
>  1 I work against a stop, rather than between stops, so the board is 
> free to move during planing. This requires that the ends be close to 
> square to the length first. It also means that the sides have to be 
> roughly square to the faces.

	I was trying to avoid taking Ian Kirby's name in vain in this 
discussion, but it seems to me that when dimensioning rough stock it is 
a major advantage to be able to secure the piece in such a way that it 
can be worked without worrying about it sliding around.  Conversely, I 
see no advantage to leaving the board "free to move."  Even with a 
Kirby-style stop-only bench, it is fairly easy to rig up a simple 
system to keep the workpiece in one place.  For example, put the piece 
against the stop, and at the other end, clamp a lath or board thinner 
that what is to be planed, close to the end of the workpiece.  Use a 
scrap about as wide as the bench, and secure it with a short bar or C 
clamp to each edge of the bench.  Then use a narrow wedge to close the 
space between the lath and the end of the workpiece, thus securing it 
between lath and stop.  If the bench is even more Normitic, with just a 
plain flat surface, two such clamped cross-pieces, with one wedge, can 
make it Galoot-compatible, without resorting to nailing blocks to the 
top of the bench, boring dog holes that you don't want to have to 
explain to the Normite next door, or other brutality.  To anticipate a 
detail that has come up before:  securing a workpiece for planing (with 
time-honored vise-and-dog, wedges, or similar systems), does *not* 
imply squeezing it to the point of bowing or distorting.  It just means 
"securing."

>  2 I would cut the boards down to the rough length first - long boards 
> are harder to plane than shorter boards.
>
	I will certainly agree with this.  Not *final* length, but within an 
inch or so of what the final dimensions will be.  Same goes for width, 
for that matter.  Leaving the rough cutoffs unplaned not only saves 
work, but leaves them to be used in a different way on a different day. 
		
		Tom Holloway