Planning re-claimed lumber

[rseeley13]

I figured this would be a good place to start since most people here have a wood shop and do different things. I was approached to do some surface planning (with our spiral head planer) on some re-claimed lumber. I was wondering a couple things...

1. what are others out there charging for surfacing re-claimed lumber (they want this to be that skip planning that is becoming popular)

2. can you do skip planning on the shopbot like you can on the planer?

I guess I am a little worried about damaging the carbide spiral heads, he says it is no nails but we all know how that goes.

Thanks for the guidance in advance.

[coryatjohn]

You should use a metal detector or ask for a deposit on your cutters.

I plane on the SB all the time. It works well and is fairly simple. It is time consuming and probably not in any way worth the effort for reclaimed lumber. I only do it because I find it very satisfying to make my own boards from logs and such. It is not cost effective at all.

[steve_g]

Surfacing slabs of wood on the ShopBot is what we do!

We’ve found that using a bit with replaceable carbide inserts is the best tool for the job. Even new wood can have an occasional surprise inside! With four sided inserts, 15 minutes later we’re back in business…

Skip planning may not be successful… When you travel back and forth, you are going from climb cutting to conventional and it shows as slightly different cut like you see when mowing grass two different directions. We touch up with a belt sander to remove these marks.

To echo what John said, it’s time consuming! If you have access to a surface planer big enough, it’ll be the fastest route. A good Garrett hand held metal detector can be found for under $200.00, I wouldn’t begin to surface reclaimed lumber without one!

SG
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