What tools/techniques are needed to resaw timber to thickness by hand?
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- This topic has 5 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 6 months ago by Thomas Angle.
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I’m just starting out with woodworking, and noticed that a lot of the cutting lists for various projects need wood in lots of different thicknesses.
I’ve found some timber available locally for a reasonable price, mostly 1″ or 2″ thick.
Any advice on how to resaw this into thinner pieces by hand? I don’t have access to any power tools.
I’m wondering about the type of saw I should use (I’m guessing a ripcut panel saw with low TPI, but I don’t know if this will be accurate enough or lead to a lot of waste), and if there are any techniques to know about that might help get a good straight cut with minimum wastage?
Also, is there a rough guide to how much room I should leave for planing to the thickness I want afterwards? Or does that just depend on how accurate my sawing is?
Hello, resawing can be tough, time consuming, and satisfying all at the same time. Softer woods can be be resawn without too much effort, maple, oak or exotics can test your arm/ shoulder. Sometimes it is easier to re-size your project a bit closer to standard lumber, other times you may find a scrub plane of use but if looking to re-saw and get two usable pieces, then yes, your accuracy has a lot to do with how much kerf/ allowance to make when cutting your full thickmess. Paul does have a video whereby he flips the piece around in the vice to maintain a closer cut down the centre of the work. I will edit if i can find the link.
BrianJ17 October 2016 at 11:21 pm #141532If you follow the method in Paul Sellers’ video, your accuracy depends mostly on the saw and the wood. I was quite astonished, how accurate I was with a huge frame saw, slightly over 2 tpi and 3 mm thick (see image). Speed isn’t so bad on smaller stock, if you have a real ripcut saw. The “universal” saws can be used, but they aren’t half that effective. It seems, that rip-cut saws are more effective on cross-cut, than cross-cut saws on rip-cut. The cheapest effective saw would be a frame saw (just another video from Paul Sellers) with a rip-cut blade.
I have a big piece of wood here, that I want to cut into boards, about 5″ thick and almost 10″ wide. I did a test cut with a huge frame saw and it wasn’t too bad. Unfortunately, I didn’t know the resawing video from Paul Sellers at that time, and I got a light curve on one side and a bad one on the other side (the one that I could not see while sawing) – see picture.
As for the allowance to make for thickness, you need to test yourself. I usually waste more wood while planing (not exactly experienced either).
Dieter
[attachment file=141533]
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You must be logged in to view attached files.Limited experience but from my experience, 1) a marking gauge or some sort of knife line is critical to getting the width consistent–this will be more apparent on longer boards. 2) I like to run 2 gauge lines down a few mm apart so I can work on keeping the saw “in the channel” between the marking lines.
Resawing can be time consuming and exhausting but it’s all part of the process. Ideally if I have to resaw something, I think it is best to only resaw the length of board I actually need (i.e. cross cut the piece first to length so I don’t have to exert extra energy resawing a piece of wood I won’t be using.
22 October 2016 at 4:38 am #141775When resawing wide boards, I like to take a tennon saw and saw a shallow groove around the board. I do not have a kerf saw. It helps to keep me in line. Also really try to focus on keeping the saw inline and switch sides every 10 to 15 cuts. I like to angle the board away from me so I am kind of cutting diangle down the board.
I find the mental focus to be the thing to cause the most problems after a while.
As for saws. A rip saw in the 26″ range works the best. I started out with a 10 tpi and it was a chore to resaw 4″ and wider boards. So I found a 3.5 to 4 tpi saw on Ebay and that made a huge difference. I do have to a 7 tpi say and the does well for almost all my resawing.
If I confused you let me know. I am really tired right now.
- This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by Thomas Angle.
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