Friday, March 10, 2017

How to true up a rough cut board

 Well, this is the last unclaimed space in the whole house, the last cabinet to be built with the last little bits of box elder I have. Here's a little drawing of the two piece shelving unit I have in mind.. but anyways....that will be a story for another time.

  Today I want to post about how to true up a piece of rough cut lumber. These are the last four pieces I have of the box elder I have been using. It is all gnarly in the edges, trapezoidal, and uneven.
 There are a few ways to straighten them up, but my favorite way, what I have found to be the fastest and most reliable is to screw an already straight piece of wood to the board you want to create a clean edge on, and then run it through the table saw with the machine edge against the fence. Then take the pattern board off and pass your lumber back through the saw using your new edge against the fence. The box elder has character worm holes in it , so I had to think even less about the finished product because the screw holes will just blend in with the character of the wood. But if you have a finished side verse and back side make sure your screw holes will be on the back OR you can use the old carpenters trick of making wood fill putty with the saw dust from you lumber and some wood glue mixed together to fill the holes so you can't see them. Batta-Bing Batta-Boom!

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