squaring

**steve** · 02-25-2001, 03:57 AM

working with man made wood is a breeze squaring it off, but as soon as i work with pine ,my god i feal like pulling my hair out every thing i"ve made has been solid pine and been doing it for 1 and a half year"s and the way i see it i"ll all way"s be learning.reason being that i find squaring off pine is it"s never dead straight and to me that"s a problem.love to hear from you, and wander if it"s only me that has that problem ?

**WoodMangler** · 02-25-2001, 11:25 AM

as far as the "tearing of hair" thing...I'd recommend a hat with a very complicated strap system..so by the time you get the thing off you've cooled down enough so your hair is not in danger. As far as "squaring off" is concerned...I'm afraid you lost me. Do you mean cutting it squarely?...assembling it squarely?...guess I need a little more info...
Marc

**MadMark** · 02-25-2001, 12:56 PM

By squaring up lumber do you mean accurate crosscutting? Accurate Ripping? Accurate surfacing?

There are a lot of different things you can get square.

Here is some terminology that might help:

http://www.netexperts.cc/~lambertm/Wood/boards.gif

There are several levels of "squaring". First is converting roughcut lumber into S4S (Surfaces Four Sides) boards. This is "stock preparation".

Once you have S4S then you need to make individual pieces for your project.

Finally you have the assembly and fab of the project.

First off, you need an accurate straightedge and square.

You can check the accuracy of your straightedge by drawing a line with it and then flipping it over and redrawing the same line with the same edge. Any mismatch between the two lines tells you your straightedge is out, where it's out, and how far it's out.

Having established an accurate straightedge, now move to your square. Using a straight line as a baseline (or the edge of a piece of "factory" stock) draw a line with your square. Again flip things over and redraw. Any variation in the two lines shows that the square is not right.

At this point you have a square you can trust. Use this to set up your saw. Your saw blade needs to be perpendicular to the table, and parallel to the miter slot. The rip fence needs to be parallel to the blade. Unless all of these conditions are met, your saw won't cut accurately and your projects won't come out.

Calibrate your miter fence to insure that you have the fence perpendicular to the blade. Cut a long (maybe 2') piece of stock in half. Flip one of the pieces over and reunite the cut edges. If the board is no longer straight, your miter fence is skewed relative to the blade. Likewise if there is a gap at the top or bottom of the cut then your TS blade is not perpendicular to the table top. Adjust both until correct.

Wood has three dimensions, width, length, and thickness. You can control the first two with the table saw. The third is controlled with a planer.

Some conditions are almost impossible to fix. A severely twisted board should be cut up into smaller pieces for other projects or used as kindling. You shouldn't buy this type of lumber to begin with.

Starting with a planer and a TS and a piece of rough cut lumber you can convert it into S4S using the following steps. Note that this presumes that the board isn't excessively cockeyed to begin with. There are procedures you can used if the board is severely bent and the like, but this is for reasonably straight lumber.

Run the rough lumber thru the planer on both sides taking a light pass. This will knock off any obvious high spots. Place the smoothest side down and plane the remaing face flat. This is now the reference face.

Move to the TS and with the reference face down rip a little off one edge. Reverse the board and repeat on the other, keeping the reference face down. If the board was severely bowed when you started you may have to use a guide or repeat the process a second time. At this point you will have a board with a flat face and two perpendicular edges.

If the board is a lot thicker than you desire, resaw it at this point. You can resaw on the TS or with a band saw. Get it to 1/16" or 1/8" of your final thickness.

Returning to the planer feed the reference face down and plane the board to the desired finished thickness. At this point you should have a S4S board.

M

**steve** · 02-25-2001, 06:51 PM

thank u all for replying two my question.by squaring off i meant by making up panel"s from slat"s of pine messuring 700 mm height,660 mm length and ripping and crosscutting two size,as i was crosscutting the pine pannel was rocking against the fence because of that edege being slightly warp"ed, which in turn didnt cut my pannel straight,then messauring from corner to corner to see if it was square and found i was out 1 whole centirmetre and i know that"s a lot.i"m making a office table with 3 set"s of drawer"s on each side,and that"s what the pannel"s are for.i"m installing steal running track"s for the drawer"s and boy did i have fun with them,i could"nt get them rite( straight ) with the other pannel so when i stood the pannel"s uprite held by sash clamp"s and slid"ed the drawer"s in they did"nt sit straight, after awhile ( along while ) i work"ed it out, now i think it took me for ever because that one pannel was out by 1 cm, and the other was perfectly square. it took me awhile but i know that the next set of drawer"s wont take as long i hope .do u think i"m being two fussy or not.?