Australian Wood Review – June 2017

http://www.woodreview.com.au 67

TECHNIQUE

Dressed For Success

Mastering the process of dressing boards flat and square by hand

will take your skills to the next level. Story by Damion Fauser.

T

here are many reasons why you might choose to dress
one or more boards by hand. You might have a 150mm
jointer and need to dress a wider board. You might be a
hand tool purist.

When I moved to Philadelphia for three years a while
back, I knew I didn’t want to invest too heavily in my small
workshop over there. So, I consciously chose to forego a
jointer and milled every face and edge by hand. I dressed
countless boards in this fashion and made some fairly
sizeable projects in a very modest workshop.

Whatever your reason, knowing the tools, skills and
techniques required to dress boards by hand will open
up your options as a woodworker.

Tools required

Aside from some handplanes, the following will come
in handy:
Gloves Trust me, if you don’t do a lot of handplaning,
you may well get some blisters at first.
Wedges For shimming a warped face against your
flat benchtop.
Winding sticks and straightedges Checking for and
determining the scale of any wind, cup, bow and crook.
Bench dogs For securing your stock to your benchtop.
Square For checking the squareness of your face side to
face edge.

Take a close look

Start by looking closely at your wood to see where and
how much it is twisted and bent. I find it best to start by
flattening the concave face, as the plane can bring the high
edges down, whereas if you start on the convex face it is
too easy to ride the curved profile over the width of the
board. Also inspect the edge to determine the best grain
direction for planing the face.

Secure the workpiece

Secure your wood between benchdogs. For extra holding
power try having a wider end vice and two rows of dog
holes. Gently snug the board tight – if you tighten the
vice too hard you’ll risk creating an artificial bow. Tap
some timber wedges into the gaps between the bottom

Opposite: Using

a mid-size plane

to take a series

overlapping

diagonal passes.

1. Use benchdogs,
   wedges and
   cauls to secure
   your board to
   the bench.


2. Protect the
   back edge from
   blowing out
   by taking off a
   coarse chamfer.

2

1

face and the bench to prevent any rocking of the board

on the bench.

Lastly, place a batten at one end against the back edge of

the board, then clamp it to the benchtop at the back of the

bench to stop the board from moving laterally from inside

the dogs (photo 1).

Flatten the face edge

With a block plane, first knock a coarse chamfer off the

back edge of your board (photo 2). This prevents this edge

from blowing out when you start on the face. If the board

is very rough from the mill, or has a high degree of twist or

cup, the best plane to start with is the No.40 scrub plane.