I just heard of a woodworking machine called a "Flattener" today.
We were at a birthday party and I asked for advice about taking the
twist out of a 9/4 walnut board, 8" wide and 5' long, without having a
jointer big enough or using winding sticks and hand planes.
Obviously, the task is to get one side of the board flat, and then go
from there to get parallel sides.

A guy told me about this machine from the old days in a shop where he
worked as a kid.

A "Flattener". It's like a surface planer, with the cutter head on the
bottom. The top of the board if held gently by bed of "nails" that
sorta hangs down and holds the board so it can't tip as it goes through
the machine. The nails are held in some sort of sliding (upside down)
"sled" that feeds the board through.

Has anyone here ever seen one or know where there's a picture of one?

I googled "what is a board flattener?" and got some responses that
suggested making a sled for a regular surface planer, using various
techniques to hold the board still for a few light passes, until the
upper surface of the board is more or less flat.


Pete Stanaitis
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