Milling Lumber

Milling lumber from rough stock is an enjoyable endeavor to me. As each board is jointed I get a good look at the grain pattern and color. At this point I can make some critical judgements about the placement and use for each piece. I work hard to try to make the grain of the boards I use "work" harmoniously together, at least to my eye.

I begin milling by breaking the large pieces down into smaller sizes where possible. This makes the material easier to handle and also reduces the amount of stock removal for bowed and cupped pieces. I use a chop saw or skil saw to cut stock to length and the band saw to rip cut.

Now I flatten one face at the jointer. The jointer and planer I own (Powermatic 8" jointer PJ-882HH and 15" planer 15HH) both have Byrd helical cutterheads. These heads really work well in figured wood. I experienced almost no tearout in this maple and I know from running this type of stuff through a jointer and planer with straight knives that that is remarkable. The helical design also makes the machine quieter but I always wear hearing protection when running almost any tool.

Next I joint an edge square to the just flattened face, then the stock is ready to be thickness planed and ripped to width.

I started milling with the maple since I had a good idea of what I needed from each piece and I was eager to see the figure in the pieces I had bought. Here I have jointed one face flat.

And here I have jointed an edge at 90 degrees to the face and have planed the opposite face. The material is stickered and resting for a few days before final sizing and resawing. I'm pleased with the material and think it will make some gorgeous panels.

The walnut took a while to figure out what to cut where.  I am still mulling things over for this project and fear I may be short a bit on material. I had chosen some material to resaw for legs which was riff sawn, and I thought I had all the other parts figured out but I'm still making decisions.  Here is the rough stock waiting to be made into something.

Here is most of the stock milled into rough sizes.

 Here is an action shot of me resawing at the bandsaw...

and the produce of my effort.

The boards on the left must have had some inner tension because they both bowed to the outside in the middle when resawn. I was planning to use those for the top rails of the frame front and back but will have to see if they will still work. They may lose too much material when flattened. If so I will have to rethink my layout. At this point I have stickered everything and will let it set for a few days before I start final sizing and joinery. Well, that does it for now. I'll be back in a couple of days with more.