The Advantages of Using a Wood Planer

A wood planer is a versatile tool that allows you to smooth rough lumber, clean up sawn edges and give new life to old wood. It also helps you to achieve a precise thickness on the material.

A thickness planer is particularly useful when you need to accurately flatten boards that are of varying thicknesses. This can be important for projects that require panels to be glued up.

Planing

A planer is a handy tool that can help you reclaim old wood, clean up inexpensive rough-sawn boards and create custom thicknesses for your woodworking projects. Some planers are more powerful than others, allowing you to plane even large pieces of wood quickly and efficiently.

When using a wood planer, make sure the surface is flat and smooth before you begin sanding. This is achieved by laying a straight edge along the surface of your wood and seeing that it sits flush against the face of the wood, whether it is on a high spot or on a low one.

A common problem with surface planers is “snipe.” This happens when the rollers on a planer pull upward on your wood, causing slightly deeper cuts at the edges of the wood than in the center. To avoid snipe, always pull up on your wood as it passes through both the front and back rollers of the planer.

Jointing

When preparing lumber for a woodworking project, you may need to joint the edges of the board before you can use it. A jointer can smooth a board’s surface, flatten its edges, and square its faces.

However, a wood planer is more efficient when it comes to quickly reducing a board’s thickness or making sure opposing planes are parallel. The planer can remove a layer of wood as it passes through it, and its settings allow you to control the thickness.

A wood planer is a power tool that’s similar to a hand plane, and it has rollers that feed the workpiece across the bed and beneath a cutter head. The cutter head removes the top layer of wood as it cuts, producing a uniform thickness.

The best way to use a jointer is to start with the high points and smooth one edge before moving on to the opposite face. Then, you can run the workpiece through the planer to make the second face flat and straight.

Edge sanding

If you are looking for a way to smooth the edges of a workpiece, a wood planer is one option. They are popular power tools for woodworking projects, and they come in handheld floor sanders and belt sanders.

A planer can help you produce boards of an even thickness, which is important for projects such as tables and cabinets. In addition, it can remove any twists or cups on the surface of a slab.

Edge sanding with a wood planer is much more straightforward than using a hand-sanding block. This saves time and increases operational efficiency.

If you’re a woodworker who works with live edge slabs, this is especially important. Most of the time, a slab will need to be planed first to ensure that both sides are flat and straight.

Finishing

A wood planer removes long chips of wood from the surface of a workpiece. This helps to create a flattened and uniform wood surface with clearly defined edges.

Unlike wide belt sanders, planers do not generate a lot of sawdust to fling into the air. This is a benefit because it reduces the need for a dust collection system.

Another advantage is that a planer can handle softer woods more easily than a sander. This is important because it can help to reduce the chance of damaging a project by removing too much material and causing cracking or splitting.

In addition, a planer is useful for truing rough lumber. This can be especially useful when working with reclaimed woods like barn boards, fence posts or decking. It is also a great option for creating a nominal thickness in newer materials. This allows the wood to be used for more projects without having to buy additional lumber or sand it down.