Manual of Purpose-Made Woodworking Joinery

Panelled doors 77

is wound down to the machine’s depth- gauge meas-

urement to remove the first few millimetres of the

surplus width. This allows the material to be checked

for size before the final setting of the rollered under-

table to the required finished width. Finally, a similar

sequence of operations is repeated to obtain the

finished thickness of the material. Note that thick-

nessed widths precede thicknessed thicknesses to

help maintain stability of the relatively slim timber-

on- edge passing through the pressurized underbelly

of the machine – which must only take one piece of

timber at a time (unless the machine has a sectional

or recessional feed- roller) and the timber’s length

must not be less than the measurement between the

infeed and outfeed rollers. Usually, 300mm is a safe

minimum – but individual manufacturer’s instruction

literature should be carefully and fully read.

Hand planing

Figure 5.3: Planing sawn timber all round by hand,

using a metal jack- or try- plane, requires a good

degree of developed skill to achieve a true, flat surface,

square edges and parallel width and thickness – to the

sizes required. However, planing- all- round, if prac-

tised is an excellent introduction to the basic skills of

general hand- planing. The procedure is as follows:

● Select one of the wide surfaces of the sawn timber

to be the face- side and – simply expressed – plane

off the rough surface. However, more precisely,

the planing has to be controlled: 1) to achieve

surface- straightness (with no rounds or hollows) in

Next, the machine must be isolated (the power
switched off ) and, with a metal try- square, the fence
should be checked and adjusted for precise squareness
to the machine bed. When squared, place a length of
the surfaced timber against the fence, drop the bridge
guard to its lowest position and adjust it laterally to
just clear the sawn face of the material. Then remove
the test piece, switch on the power and start machin-
ing the face- edges to the stiles and rails, as illustrated
in Figure 5.2(b).
Whilst passing the pieces over the revolving
cutter block, unrelenting light hand- pressure must
be applied to keep the face- sides against the fence,
ensuring squareness of the edges – but, more impor-
tantly, too much feed- pressure can cause the timber
to snatch and fly back, leaving the cutters exposed to
the oper ator’s over- exerted downwards thrust. This
safe practice is achieved by keeping the outstretched
fingers of both hands pressed against the sawn- face
and the thumbs in a thumb- printing position on the
timber’s top edge. To accomplish this, you will have
to move (after the initial start) to the side of the
machine, facing the end of the cutter block. Note
that – even though the cutter block is covered by the
bridge guard and/or the timber being machined – you
must develop the safe practise of lifting the relevant
hand off the timber when passing over the cutter
block. And never hold your clenched fingers behind
material being surfaced or edged when passing over
the cutter block.
After surfacing and edging and isolating the
machine again, the bridge guard must be readjusted to
completely cover the cutter block and the under- table

Figure 5.2 (b) Hand- positions

and stance for planing the

‘face edge’.