A band saw will not surface the wood.

Also your wood is too big for a 14" bandsaw to resaw. I have a 14" w/
riser block. I wish I had a 17 or 18 bandsaw for the amount of work I do
with a bandsaw now. More HP and a bigger throat with a better resaw
capability.

The fact that you have wide boards requires hand planing to keep them
wide. If you split them up, an 8" planer will still be required, since
6" will be too narrow. Then you will be able to use one of the 13.5 inch
planers.

If you have a small shop, I would look at one of the combo units that
will do jointing and planing. Get a good unit, not a half ass unit. I
saw the reviews on the Jet, and it was ugly... The europeans make nice
combo machines. One dollar, one footprint and two uses...
With these machines you can get a 12 or 14" jointer/planer... And no
they won't require you to pour a reinforced concrete pad like the old
12" jointers... They weighed a ton or more.



On 7/7/2012 11:56 AM, 4fingers wrote:
OK -- I know they're two different tools with different main purpose.
However -- I have ~300 bd.ft. of black walnut. Most of it is rough and some
is S2S, all of it is a full 1 1/8" thick or more. Although I like hand
tools I can't see planing that much lumber just to surface it much less to
get it to a full 1" or 3/4" thickness. I think a bandsaw would be more
practial since I could use it for other things including (I hope) resawing
/ surfacing the lumber to thickness. I'm thinking about getting a 14" and a
riser block or a 17". Either would have to be 120 volts. How practical
would surfacing on a bandsaw be? Or would I be better off just getting a
planer? BTW most of the boards are 8 - 14" wide. I also have some oak
that's 16" wide that will need surfacing also. Thanks.