On 10/15/2018 4:37 PM, William Ahern wrote:

I'm a novice. I've been building garage shelving the hard way by
meticulously edge gluing 1"x6"x8' pine boards to practice technique. I'm
preparing to edge glue some 2"x12"x4' douglas fir for heavy-duty rolling
shelves (previous shelves hung on wall brackets). I bought some cheap
dimensional douglas fir that was already sufficiently dry but cupped, unlike
the pine boards which were flat enough. But I lack a planer and am not
particularly interested in buying one. (The point of the shelving is to help
reduce clutter and to get everything off the floor. Adding bulky tools isn't
helping things.) I tried hand planing with a jack-plane but there are too
many knots, and I've decided I don't want to deal with 24' of those (nor pay
for wood that can be easily handtooled, which would be the smart thing).

I'm not a novice and I would not recommend edge gluing cupped 2x12's for
shelving. If you want 22 1/2" shelves, I would recommend plywood. If
you really wish to use 2x lumber, stick with 2x6 or less for the glue
ups. When choosing the lumber, look for quarter sawn or rift cut boards
to reduce/eliminate cupping.

Even if you owned a planer, gluing up flat sawn 2x12's, then planing
them flat, will likely just result in thinner cupped shelves. Wood cups
because of grain direction. Planing it doesn't change that. In fact,
flat sawn lumber can be re-sawn into quarter sawn (the edges of flat
sawn is quarter sawn) then glued up to eliminate warpage. A planer makes
this a relatively easy task.

--
Jack
Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.
http://jbstein.c

I do have a router and have already built a sled using an 8' MDF trim board
(cut in half), two angle irons (already had on hand), a 2'x4' particle board
backer, some scrap wood, and a 1 1/2" cleaning router bit. Hopefully I'll
get a chance to start leveling the boards this weekend.

Regarding kickback, I would just say to hope for the best and *expect* the
worst. I'm extremely cautious by nature, but grew up working summers on my
dad's construction crew where it was normal to shoot nail guns at people
when they're on 20'-high scaffolding for laughs. I always go slow but
appreciate that people can be too risk averse. (Or maybe the lesson was just
that people who are too risk adverse get shot at with nail guns when they're
on 20'-high scaffolding.)

I've also read advice that free-handing a cleaning router bit can be
dangerous too, especially for a bit size 2" or wider. I don't (and
shouldn't) expect the sled to do much to minimize that risk.

I think the most important thing is to expect the unexpected, and don't get
lazy about it. You already have good reason to expect the board to shatter
or become a projectile, so prepare accordingly. Advice seems mixed, so you
have plausible deniability about knowing how stupid it was.
om