On Jul 27, 4:29 pm, " wrote:
On the rare occasions that I buy wide stock, I'll have the dealer face joint me a reference for my planer, or the wood will be cut into narrower parts before jointing with a hand, band, or jigsaw.

There is a less expensive and relatively easy way --- Use a scrub
plane and winding sticks. You only have to level one side fairly close
and then run it through a surface planer.

That's the way I did it for a few years before I was finally couldn't
justify spending the day getting the lumber milled and couldn't resist
the introductory offer on the Griz G0586. I used a jointer plane and a
Sargent 6, but that was the only difference.

It worked, I just never could get the hang of getting it done fast.
Some boards just wouldn't cooperate. I thought I'd get faster over
time but I never did. Finally the projects were piling up and I just
gave up on the planes for that particular task. Now it takes me an
hour or less to square up all the stock and I realize that with the
planes I was getting the stock pretty close to flat and square, but
not quite true. Since I got that jointer, everything in the project
goes faster because the stock's all square up from the getgo.

I'm not saying Joel's way is the wrong way. Just that although I enjoy
using hand planes - those long days I spent prepping the stock were
actually fun - but for some reason I was never able to get the hang of
squaring up stock properly and quickly. I'm okay at it and if the
jointer's down I can do it, but I now know that I'm one of the reasons
they invented those things.

But when there's only one or two pieces I prefer to slap 'em on the
bench and do 'em by hand. It's still fun and it's faster than getting
the jointer station ready. Small shop, y'know.