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273588 Darrell <larchmont479@g...> 2021‑05‑04 Re: flattening a large slab
Andrew asks about flattening and thinning down a big slab of beech...

On Mon, 3 May 2021 at 22:41, Andrew Heybey  wrote:

> We recently redid our kitchen.  There is a small island in the kitchen,
> the top of which is about 3’ x 3’.  A friend gave us a large slab of beech
> to use as the top of the island.  The slab is is about 36” by 45” by 3-3.5”
> (it tapers from one end to the other).  It is also bowed by about 1/2”
> across the narrow dimension.
>
>
>
Well, I have a fairly recent project (Pandemic Project #2) that used a big
slab of figured cherry.  My stock was 48" X 18" and I had to plane half an
inch off it.  I learned long ago that one face of a piece of wood can behave
very different from the other.  When I worked on that cherry, I ran a jack
plane over one face to see how it worked.  It got reasonably smooth and
flat easily.  The second face did not work easily at all.  Tearout,
splintering,
and just all-round nasty.  So, that meant the Good face was the first one.
I proceeded to flatten that good face and get it reasonably smooth.

Thicknessing, well, for my purposes I just needed it to sit level on the
frame of the table. I used a scrub plane to hog off most of the stock
and then a jack plane to bring it down to the line.  Ah yes, the line.
I used a Stanley #78 rebate & fillister plane to cut a rebate with the
fence registering on the Face side.  That means I simply plane the
off side down to the bottom of that rebate.  Easy to see, that's for sure.
I only scrubbed for 30 minutes or so at a time, otherwise I would have
ended up a broken man, trying to accomplish the entire work at once.

I put some pictures up on Galootopedia.  Here's one where you can see
the rebate and the scrub plane.
http://galootopedia.com/old-tools_wiki/images/e/e6/Scrubbing.jpg

I don't know how well dried your stock is...  my cherry sat in the wood
rack for well over a decade.  Despite being 18 inches wide it seems
pretty stable so far.

Best of luck!
Darrell
-- 
Oakville ON
Wood Hoarder, Blade Sharpener, and Occasional Tool User

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