First time milling wood to dimension solo - order of operations / advice?

Maker Talk Dumb Questions Invited
1

I have taken both the woodshop safety course and stationary sanders course, but I was looking for some sort of order of operations for operating the jointer and the powermatic sander (I’ve used the sander on my own before, but I remember a specific sequence of actions being required to turn it on and operate it). Additionally, any tips you all can provide for avoiding noob mistakes on the jointer would be greatly appreciated.

2

How long are the boards? For the jointer, don’t set the depth of cut too high, you want to take off 1/32 to 1/16 per pass, depending on the width of the board. also, don’t press down on the center of the board so that you don’t flatten out any warp, otherwise it’ll come out still warped. Just press down with minimal force on the ends of the board, to keep it from rocking and stuff.

3

A good order of operations is to face joint a wide face on the jointer and then referencing that face put a square edge on the board also on the jointer.

Then move to the planer to get the opposite face parallel and flat.

Then move to the table saw and use a feather board and the fence to get the last edge square and parallel to the first edge.

If needed, use the drum sander to clean up the faces. Pull the lever up on the back to turn on. Put the board between the depth finding pins and lower to find thickness. Push both green buttons to turn on the paper and the conveyor belt. Feed your piece through. If necessary push the up button to automatically reduce thicjness by 0.005” between passes…

Have fun! Milling lumber is strangely satisfying.

Adam did a great demo on milling that should be on our YouTube channel

4

That’s good to know! I had not considered cutting depth. The boards are 42".

I appreciate the tips.

5

Thanks for the thorough run through, Steve! This is exactly what I was looking for. I’ll check out the video as well. Cheers!

6

I’ll also take this opportunity to plug this recording of our Demo Day Milling Lumber that @gordoa40 taught a few months back :awesome:

5 Likes
7

Thanks, Valerie! This is super helpful.

8

One clarification: Stephen is describing the sequence for the Powermatic large belt sander, not the (Supermax 25-50) Drum Sander.