Best way to dimension rough lumber with hand tools only

[Daniel A]

Hi everyone, I'm new to NCWW and relatively new to woodworking, although I grew up helping my Dad and as a mechanical engineer I'm not totally ignorant of making things. I've basically gone from zero to all the hand tools in the world over the last few months, trying my best to get everything I need to be successful. For context, I live in an apartment and have turned my spare room into sort of a woodworking shop. I have a table saw, but can only use it outside since it's way too loud to use indoors, so I'd only use it on my back patio.

I recently got a great deal on about 120 bd ft of 6/4 lumber that is 9.5" x 80". It was a great price (about $5/bd ft) but now i have this huge pile of rough lumber and only hand tools to flatten it with. I got about a quarter of one done and it took absolutely forever!

So my question is, what is the best strategy to dimension all of this lumber? I am a big proponent of "work smarter, not harder," but given the task and the tools involved, I think I'm going to have to work VERY smart and VERY hard to have any chance of getting all this wood into S4S lumber.

Any tips to make my life a little easier over the next few weeks?

As far as relevant tools at my disposal, I have the following: a decent (but small) workbench with dog holes and a vise; Stanley planes no. 4 smoothing, no. 5(x2) jack, Bedrock no. 607 jointer, no. 40 scrub, no. 60 1/2 block plane, no. 78 rabbet, and no. 45 combination; and a wide assortment of hand saws. I've attached some pictures to give a better idea of the task and tools at hand.

How should I go about this? Where do I start? Do I do all the steps on each piece individually or should I do each step on every board before moving to the next step? Is this even worth it, or should I just go buy some S4S lumber instead? It's all very overwhelming.

Edit: The rough lumber is mostly white oak (85%) with a bit of yellow pine (15%). I'm located in northern Cary near N Harrison Ave. and NW Maynard Rd.

 

[Daniel A]

I forgot to mention: the lumber is about 85% white oak and 15% southern yellow pine. All of it has been stickered for about two years so it's good and dry.

 

[Hmerkle]

First,
Welcome Daniel,
We are glad you found us.
There are a lot of hand tool enthusiasts here on NCWW, but the two that come to mind are @Mike Davis and Richard @Graywolf.

Thay have both helped me a ton and while I could spout what they have taught me, I think it is better to come from them.
I know @Mike Davis does some one-on-one classes in his shop and that may be a good place for you to start...

Maybe you have seen this post: https://ncwoodworker.net/forums/index.php?threads/student-work.75582/

One question - what is your first project?

 

[Daniel A]

First,
Welcome Daniel,
We are glad you found us.
There are a lot of hand tool enthusiasts here on NCWW, but the two that come to mind are @Mike Davis and Richard @Graywolf.

Thay have both helped me a ton and while I could spout what they have taught me, I think it is better to come from them.
I know @Mike Davis does some one-on-one classes in his shop and that may be a good place for you to start...

Maybe you have seen this post: https://ncwoodworker.net/forums/index.php?threads/student-work.75582/

One question - what is your first project?

Thanks! As for my first project, it's going to be a hand tool cabinet to hold all my saws, planes, chisels, mallets, squares, brace, etc. Right now they're just piled up in random locations, and I really benefit from organization. I'll probably build the basic carcass for it first, then work on a hand plane till to house all of those, then work my way up to making some drawers for the bottom. I'll probably use as much white oak as I can, but I'd like to find a local source of walnut for things like the drawer fronts. One thing holding me back from a lot of options is my lack of transportation -- I don't have a truck that I can just go to the lumberyard and pick up materials with.

 

[Mike Davis]

Welcome.

I don’t see a location, what city?

I see you don’t have a truck. I don’t either. I was going to suggest loading up the wood, bringing it to my shop, and using my lunchbox planer. Exercise is good and I love hand tools but too much of anything ain’t fun.

 

[Hmerkle]

Welcome.

I don’t see a location, what city?

I see you don’t have a truck. I don’t either. I was going to suggest loading up the wood, bringing it to my shop, and using my lunchbox planer. Exercise is good and I love hand tools but too much of anything ain’t fun.

I think Daniel is in Cary.
My first thought is he got the wood and tools to his apartment somehow.
Additionally, if he can break it down to rough sizes for the cabinet... easy peasy!

 

[Robert LaPlaca]

Daniel welcome the the forum. Wow, processing lumber by hand, white oak at that, there will be no need to visit the gym for a while.

First I wouldn't attempt to process any of the lumber until you have a purpose for the lumber. Only then, breaking down the required boards to rough length according to your cut list. Just as a FYI 6/4 9.5" wide rough, should yield finished 1 1/4" to 1 3/8" depending on how straight the rough board is.

Good news is it sounds like you have the tools, a #5 (fore) with a camber (8") on the blade for the rough, #7 to flatten what the fore roughed and finally the #4 to finish. Pair of winding sticks are needed to determine if the board is flat (coplanar). A marking gauge is needed to mark out the desired thickness after the board is flattened.

Having said all the above, I have only bothered to totally process boards by hand that were too wide for my 16 " jointer/planer by hand, 28" wide Mahogany boards for instance. Flattening a face isn't too bad, what is the killer is flatting the second side to a given thickness.. To Mike's point, a lunchbox planer would be a great help.

 

[Charlie]

Daniel, if you live nearby, Raleigh, Cary area, (I live near Lake Wheeler) we can run the stock through my machines.
Make a cut list for you project. Length, width, thickness. That way you can cut to length (oversize by 1/2" or so), load into your vehicle and come over to my shop. There will be plenty of hand tool work after the stock is milled. I can't imagine taking 6/4 down to 3/4" with hand planes. Yes it can and has been done, but not by me. I am a "turn on the switch" type of guy.
If you need transportation let me know.

 

[Graywolf]

Daniel, welcome to the forum. I have processed projects 150 to 200 board feet by hand. I not going to lie, it’s hard work. So if you want or have to do this, then I would suggest you rough cut your materials to length and then set out flatten one surface at a time. Set your goals small and don’t set any hard and fast deadlines. Cut yourself some slack because you’re going discover muscles you forgot existed. I’m not trying to dissuade you I’m still doing a lot of my work by hand. I do however want you to be realistic about what you can accomplish in a day or an evening and enjoy the journey.

 

[Mike Davis]

If you are determined to prepare your stock by hand I will give you a one day class that will help tremendously.

 

[JNCarr]

Welcome, Daniel.

 

[Daniel A]

Welcome.

I don’t see a location, what city?

I see you don’t have a truck. I don’t either. I was going to suggest loading up the wood, bringing it to my shop, and using my lunchbox planer. Exercise is good and I love hand tools but too much of anything ain’t fun.

I'm in Cary. And that's really nice of you to offer the use of your planer; I appreciate it. Hopefully I'll be able to get a truck soon (if I can stop spending money on hand tools for a few paychecks).

 

[mkepke]

Welcome to the group.

You’ve been given a lot of advice so I’ll just add this:

If you can joint one face and one edge of your stock, you can use your table saw to rip (resaw) the second face. Way faster than hand planing the second face parallel to the first.

But taking it to someone else’s shop with a power jointer and thickness planer is even faster!

-Mark

 

[jfynyson]

Suggestion regarding not having a truck. My future plans do not include a truck but rather a 10ft (inner dimension) trailer...long enough to lay sheets goods down flat and most lumber I would ever buy. A trailer is of course exponentially lower cost than a good truck these days and is much more versatile than a truck bed IMO (having had both). Of course if using a car/SUV you'll need to add a few hundred bucks for trailer hitch, ball, receiver, locking pin & install as well as tag & title in NC.

As far as hand tool work prepping boards. You're in great hands with Mike or Richard of course. As mentioned already it's tough. I've been having to prep boards by hand lately and that's for small projects and it's tough but very rewarding in the end. Only big items is flattening computer desk tops but also as mentioned depending on the size of the project you may want to cut the boards to rough size then try one of two by hand to learn the process and see what you're up against then utilize the help of a thickness planer from someone on this forum.

Welcome to the forum !

 

[Daniel A]

Yes, I'm in Cary. As for the tools, I mostly got them from either online auctions (hibid and eBay) or local private sellers (Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace). The person I bought the white oak and yellow pine from was nice enough to deliver it for me for a small fee. He only lives about 10 minutes away from me, so luckily it wasn't too far of a haul.

I think Daniel is in Cary.
My first thought is he got the wood and tools to his apartment somehow.
Additionally, if he can break it down to rough sizes for the cabinet... easy peasy!

 

[John Jimenez]

Welcome Daniel!

 

[Daniel A]

Daniel welcome the the forum. Wow, processing lumber by hand, white oak at that, there will be no need to visit the gym for a while.

First I wouldn't attempt to process any of the lumber until you have a purpose for the lumber. Only then, breaking down the required boards to rough length according to your cut list. Just as a FYI 6/4 9.5" wide rough, should yield finished 1 1/4" to 1 3/8" depending on how straight the rough board is.

Good news is it sounds like you have the tools, a #5 (fore) with a camber (8") on the blade for the rough, #7 to flatten what the fore roughed and finally the #4 to finish. Pair of winding sticks are needed to determine if the board is flat (coplanar). A marking gauge is needed to mark out the desired thickness after the board is flattened.

Having said all the above, I have only bothered to totally process boards by hand that were too wide for my 16 " jointer/planer by hand, 28" wide Mahogany boards for instance. Flattening a face isn't too bad, what is the killer is flatting the second side to a given thickness.. To Mike's point, a lunchbox planer would be a great help.

Yeah, even the half of one board I've done so far has left me pretty sore! Plus all the grinding, sharpening, and honing of the plane blades (many looked like they hadn't been sharpened in 50 years or more) has done a number on my arms.

Thanks for all the helpful advice! My first project is going to be a 32"x48" box that will be the start of a hand tool cabinet. The width I can get out of my boards will determine the depth of the box, but it will probably end up being around 9" deep. 1 1/4" is probably a little too thick for the sides of a cabinet, so I'm planning on ripping it down to around 5/8". I may end up doing the resawing first, or after I get the first face roughly flat, as the resaw should be fairly flat (although a little uneven from the low-TPI blade I'll be using). I know that these kinds of boxes are typically made with birch plywood for dimensional stability and ease of construction, but I don't have any way to get plywood home from the store, so I'm using what I have. I'm still deciding on how I'm going to construct the back of the cabinet, as it will have to be a wide, thin board (something like 1/2"x32"x48") so I'll have to join multiple boards together. I figure I could to either a butt joint, half lap, tongue & groove, or something else. Half lap and tongue & groove wouldn't be as hard as it seems since I have a Stanley 45 combination plane and the appropriate cutters, and alternately a Stanley 78 rabbet plane, although the latter doesn't have a fence or depth stop. I may end up making the back panel first so I can make it as wide as possible, (I can make a 36" panel with four boards 9" - 9 1/4" in width) then dimension the sides to match that. If I want to keep the same 3:2 ratio as the original 32"x48" plans, then a 36" width will require a 54" length.

Any suggestions on how to put the 8" camber on the fore plane? Should I just go at it by hand with a diamond stone? I tried to take the corners off on my jointer plane because it was leaving tracks, but honestly it just seems like I put some bad scratches on my diamond stone and blunted the edges of the blade so now it cuts in even worse. I've been using the "ruler under the blade" Rob Cosman trick to flatten the back of my plane blades, and I was thinking maybe I could use a similar trick to get the edges radiused. I'm not sure, though.

It's a lot to consider, but as it's so difficult to dimension these boards by hand, I really want to make sure I have a solid plan in place before I go at it. I'd be bummed if I ended up spending hours dimensioning some lumber that I ended up ruining with a bad cut, or not using due to plans changing.

 

[Daniel A]

Daniel, if you live nearby, Raleigh, Cary area, (I live near Lake Wheeler) we can run the stock through my machines.
Make a cut list for you project. Length, width, thickness. That way you can cut to length (oversize by 1/2" or so), load into your vehicle and come over to my shop. There will be plenty of hand tool work after the stock is milled. I can't imagine taking 6/4 down to 3/4" with hand planes. Yes it can and has been done, but not by me. I am a "turn on the switch" type of guy.
If you need transportation let me know.

Wow, that's incredibly generous of you! Yes, I'm in Cary so I'm not too far away from Lake Wheeler. I don't have a way to transport lumber at the current time, so I'd need transportation too. I'd be happy to compensate you for your time and assistance.

As for thickness, right now I'm planning on making a 36"x 54"x 9" hand tool cabinet that is mostly 3/4" or 5/8" sides and a back made of four 1/2"x 9"x 54" boards joined together into a panel. Instead of wasting a bunch of lumber planing all the way from 1 1/2" down to less than half that, I think it would be a good idea to resaw everything down to the required thicknesses and then plane them. A bandsaw would be ideal for this, but I can do that beforehand with hand saws. It's going to take a little bit of work, but it's a lot better than having to plane down 6/4 lumber to 1/2" or 3/4" by hand.

If you're available this weekend, that would be perfect. If you want to send me a direct message then we can exchange information and figure out scheduling and compensation.

If possible, maybe I can just run some additional boards through just to skip plane them and save me some pain in future projects. But I'm open to whatever amount of help you're willing to give me.

Thanks again for your help, Charlie! This is going to save me an incredible amount of work. I'll still have a lot to do, but it will be the fun parts of making dovetails, rabbets, and dados, not spending 20+ hours planing rough lumber into submission.

 

[mdbuntyn]

Any suggestions on how to put the 8" camber on the fore plane? Should I just go at it by hand with a diamond stone?

Assuming that you don't have a grinder, buy a blue 80 grit sandpaper belt (preferably from Klingspor's), then go to one of the BORGs, or Habitat Restore, and buy a granite/marble tile. Attach the sandpaper to the tile using double-sided tape or spray adhesive. It'll take a while, but it wont be too bad.

 

[RichardH]

Any tips to make my life a little easier over the next few weeks?

I was in the same boat several years back being in an apartment and the biggest issue I had was having enough stability and mass in my work surface that I didn't waste more energy moving the work piece and bench it was attached to than removing wood from it. It looks like you have a nice workbench in your pictures so maybe you don't have that issue but if it's racking/rocking or shifting around at all consider increasing the weight of the bench to keep it from moving even if it's just stacking some of that lumber on the lower shelf. Building a workbench that didn't move or rack when I was using hand tools was probably the single most significant improvement I made to hand tool work.

Beyond that I would say make sure you are using the right tool for the job at hand. It's easy to fall into the habit of using the tool in your hand even when others will do it faster and for less energy like using a jack plane instead of a scrub plane when trying to rough off a bunch of thickness on a hurry.

Hope this helps,