Sophie head and her freshly milled exotic wood boards.

Jointing long boards with the tablesaw

I'm making a dining room table which should fit at least 8 people. This is a lot of table, and this very long stock must be jointed somehow. In a way, I'm glad that I encounter this snag while I'm working on the stretcher part of the table because jointing for edge gluing will be taking this seemingly impossible task to a whole new height.

Method 1 - Roller stand to extend the jointer's in/outfeed. 
This simply doesn't work: there seems to be no way to align the roller stand suitably. The more I joint, the more stock I lose near the ends of the board. I've got a 6" jointer, and must joint a 7' board.

Method 2 - Handplane!
With my largest handplane a No.5, I do not feel confident that I can remove curvatures over longer length than the length of the place (which is shorter because of the angle of attack). In hinsight, I guess that I could make a planing guide with a straightedge... mmm, I already have moved-on.

Method 3 - Tablesaw!
Here is the idea: I screw a straight piece of sheet good to my board (luckily I have some waste where this can be done). This melamine extends beyond the far edge to be jointed so that it is the only point of contact with the tablesaw fence. I then set the fence to take light passes until the jointed edge is completely straight. Once I've got one good edge, I can use this edge to mill The other side.

After action report
I tried method #3 and got decent results. The 4" melanine guide was bending a bit (maybe 1/32" in the middle), so a third screw in the midpoint would have made it more stable. This was good enough for my current piece because I was cutting down to smaller parts and re-jointing. However, this is not going to be good enough to joint for edge gluing the components of my table top. 

Back at it!

After weeks of moving, taking down the tools and subsequently setting them up again, I began working on hardwood again tonight. I'm making a Hayrake Table, which design from from an editor of the Fine Woodworking magazine.  The modification to the basic design is that the structure is made of hard maple while the table top is still made of quatersawn white oak. This will be more consistent with the China Cabinet and chairs that are going to be in the dining room. Another reason why this is so is because I couldn't source anything but 4/4 stock of oak in this cut style, and thus it would have made it very tedious to prepare the legs and stretchers (it calls for 8/4 and even some 12/4 stock).

I spend the best of 1-2 hours with my daughter doing the initial milling of the legs (with 12/4 stock), which was a good work-out for my new roller stand and a good test for the ducts going to the dust-collector. Everything seems to be working as expected. Life is good.

Tomorrow, I'm finally getting a 10" contractor saw from busybee.  The only tool not yet delivered is the DW618K 2HP router that will be the workhorse for a router table. When will this router table be made? Good question, but it is good to know that the most critical component will be in the shop.

Veneer procuring woes

Sigh, I'm trying to get my hand on some burl veneer for the TV stand project. Beautiful veneer goes for a reasonable price, but shipping more than doubles the cost ($35 of Pimento burl ends up costing $85). I spend the day groaning about that, wondering whether I should just make my own veneer (which couldn't be the nice rotary stuff from burls).  My wife, who does the budgeting, offered the simple solution of drowning the shipping cost by ordering more veneer. Isn't it simple? I'm lucky to have access to a range of woodworking stores and hardwood sawmills, but I'm totally out of luck for veneer.