How To Straighten Warped Live Edge Sawmill Slabs
Hey it's Brock here with Rock Hill Farms I've got my dad here with me today we Actually just went to his house and Picked up a jointer that we're going to Be using in some future projects but Today we're going to take this piece of Walnut it's off a tree I cut down on my Property and we're going to try to turn This into some usable Lumber and Actually going to make a little piece of Furniture out of it but this board has a Lot of bow in it And it's Live Edge and we're going to Remove the Live Edge See if we can flatten this out without Removing too much material I this is Going to be a really interesting project The first thing we need to do is cut a Perfect straight edge and a sled to use To run this through the planer we're Going to be doing this with a table saw And a planer so first thing we need to Do is we're going to use plywood for a Straight edge and so we need to go cut The plywood first so the planer can Handle 15 inch material our slab is up 13 to 14 in spots so the slab we're Going to run it on needs to be about 14 Inches so we're going to cut an eight Inch piece off one side of a new sheet Of three quarter inch plywood and that Will be our straight edge and we're Going to cut 14 inches off the other Side
For the slab [Music] I'm still kind of a novice at Woodworking but my dad has a lifetime of Experience personally and professionally Doing custom Woodwork and he's also got A lot of really nice woodworking Equipment that hasn't been used in a While and we're gonna see if we can Bring that back to life and make some Cool stuff I wasn't sliding very good so we put a Little bit of wax on the table [Music] Okay so to take the bow out of this We'll be putting These wedges under two corners until it Doesn't have any wobble left So what I realized is Where the extreme bow and warp is is on These outside corners that are going to Be cut off anyway So it's not going to hurt anything to Shave those down for sure so I think we We've decided to flip it over And then get it attached to our sled Use these wedges right here To hold it still Put one here put one under the other Corner where it's not going to move and Then set the planer to just take off These high spots in a situation like This is going to be different from one Piece of wood to the next there's no
Hard and fast rule Yeah So This is touching out in the middle but Really all four corners are are up let's Make sure it needs to be that way it Does with it being on this end All four corners are actually bowing up I think I'm just going to screw these Down That ain't going nowhere I have a I have a hunch that our planer Is going to take a little off this end It's not even a touch going through here And then it'll take off a little more at The other end and so we'll just have to Push it on through because the roller it Won't be touched and the rollers won't Pull it yeah and I think that's what we Want to happen And I also think that we don't Necessarily have to take it down for What we're doing until it's planing the Middle because if we get it really close Then that will be good enough to run it Across the table side and remove the Live Edge yeah we're going to cut this Into narrower Lumber we don't need this To be perfectly flat even though this Process will get it perfectly flat We don't need that and the more you go For that the thinner your piece of Material left is we need it to be flat Enough that it'll sit smooth on the
Table saw so we can remove the Live Edge [Music] Thank you No More [Music] Okay now in theory we have one perfectly Flat side I actually wasn't going to go Down this far But that it happened a little quicker Than I thought so in theory if we want This to be two perfectly flat sides we Can now run the other side through the Planer but I think instead maybe we Should go ahead and cut it into Wick Width And remove the Live Edge and actually I Was going to test it on this table to See how flat it sits but instead I think Maybe we want to use our straight edge To uh Lay across it up on the table The table may not because I don't think The table is necessarily perfectly flat That's a a lot better it doesn't come Across as perfect on here but let's put That Straight edge on it Still got it yeah it's pretty big Yeah Very very small I go corner to corner Yeah yeah because that's where most of The twist was So yeah that's a lot better if we wanted
This to be perfect For a lot of applications we'd need to Run it again flip it over and run it Some more but I think for what we're Doing this is flat enough because the More you process it the thinner your Your Lumber does So now We can we can attach a guide to this and Use the table saw to cut the live edge Off I'm really happy with the way that came Out let's see how much thickness we lost So what we still have left Oh yeah this is An inch and three quarters out in the Middle About an inch and five eighths on on This end because this end has some taper Right here But we only started with an inch and Three quarters maybe a little over inch And three quarters Inch and a half which is playing yeah Okay so now for this part all we want is To remove the Live Edge as always If you guys have done this before you See anything we could do better leave it In the comments let us know what you Think But right now The basic theory is we're going to Attach This to our our work piece
And the straight edge of this will run Against the the table saw the trick is Just getting this straight this is just A little wavy let's just bring it out as Far as we can without going off at any Point which is right there yeah pretty Much Now you should be able to just Set this up on here measure over a given Number of inches as long as it's on the Same on both sides and attach it down Okay say if you went four inches or Whatever as long as it's the same on Both ends So we used our straight edge to put a Line right at the edge of where we want To remove the Live Edge then we moved in Four inches from that on each end and That's where we put our straight edge Now This is a straight reference we'll run The saw blade down this line by setting The fence at 18 inches [Music] Foreign Tastic Grain on that Even just that little off piece I mean Look at the Grain on that that's awesome It's uh hard to even get rid of the Scraps because you're like man that Looks nice I I maybe there's something I Can make out of it Looks pretty good to me See how much wood we have left so after
Straightening one Edge we go to the very Narrowest point of the other side of the Live Edge we've got about nine and three Eighths which means we can rip this into Three pieces that are one and a half by Three And with the saw curves we should be Able to get three full three inch pieces And one by three is a pretty good Material for one of the dimensions we Need on this project [Music] [Music] Foreign So as we look at this finished product I Think you'll see kind of the method to The madness Of why we did not continue planing this Until it was perfectly flat Because This Walnut I cut this tree down a year And a half ago we milled it it's been Out drying outside all this time And these are the pieces that were on The top of the stack and have Live Edge On them and they've all got quite a bit Of twist in them Here's another one just like that one It's got about the same amount of bow in It and I'm getting ready off after this Video is shut down I'm going to repeat The same process on this one to get Another stack of boards like this But
The project I have this is something my Wife said she once built before Christmas and she just wanted me to go To Lowe's And buy some Pine two by fours and build It out of that I don't like that I mean there's nothing Wrong with that but I don't like I think This is a lot more special this is a Tree I cut down myself and to me that's What makes it neat And she showed me a picture of what she Wants but there was no plans or or just Drawing or anything with it and I'll be Showing that in another video but it Looked to me like possibly it was made Out of one by three or one by two and a Half my dad was thinking it was probably Closer to two by four which is actually Two by fours one and a half You know by three and a half but So we don't have an exact measurement we Need to get to but I want these to be as Thick as possible and they're currently At an inch and three quarters on all of These But if you come down to the thin end This is inch and three eighths so if we Had continued to use the planer to work This down until it was perfectly flat All of this material would be an inch in 3 8 maybe an inch and a quarter after Sanding and I don't know if that's Strong enough if it's thick enough to be
Strong enough But I can cut the ends off this I think These will be long enough that if I cut The ends off of them These can be about five foot long Which is about what we need This board was about six and a half feet If we cut both ends off We can have Lumber that is a It's currently inch and three quarters Say we go ahead and finish sand this Maybe playing playing the Rough Side Finish sand it we can be at an inch and A half so it's basically a two by four And Still have the length we need We are three inches this way So after the ends don't need planed they Just need some finished sanding So we're going to have a three inch by Inch and a half By Five foot And I think that's the most salvageable Lumber we could have got out of that Piece I've got a bunch of Live Edge Lumber out there and some of It will be used as Live Edge But not all of it I don't need that much Live Edge so I think this is going to work really Well and I'm going to work this one down the same
Way and in another week or two we'll Have another project where I show you The entire process From the tree to a finished piece of Furniture So anyway I appreciate you taking time To watch this video I'll put links on The screen to a couple more of our Videos and I'll see you next time
