Hi, I'm a bit of a newbie to this, but am starting a project that needs 1/2
inch stock and need to plane my 3/4 inch stock to thickness. I'm not
fortunate enough to have a thickness planer and I suck at planning long wide
boards to a constant even thickness. I've been thinking about it and
wondered if I could somehow create a jig for my router and a flat bottom
bit.

I remember a while back reading an article about how someone releveled their
warped workbench using a similar jig, so am wondering if there are some
shopbuilt jigs that could do this with smaller pieces. Most of my stock is
7 inches wide so my guess is that it's possible to build something that the
router plate could run on and use the bit to take the stock down to a
consistent thickness. I could try to design one myself but am hoping
someone out there as been there and done that.

On Jun 30, 8:36*am, "Bob" wrote:
Hi, I'm a bit of a newbie to this, but am starting a project that needs 1/2
inch stock and need to plane my 3/4 inch stock to thickness. *I'm not
fortunate enough to have a thickness planer and I suck at planning long wide
boards to a constant even thickness. *I've been thinking about it and
wondered if I could somehow create a jig for my router and a flat bottom
bit.

I remember a while back reading an article about how someone releveled their
warped workbench using a similar jig, so am wondering if there are some
shopbuilt jigs that could do this with smaller pieces. * Most of my stock is
7 inches wide so my guess is that it's possible to build something that the
router plate could run on and use the bit to take the stock down to a
consistent thickness. *I could try to design one myself but am hoping
someone out there as been there and done that.

Flatten workbench
http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/i...n=Custom&ID=58

http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworki...e.aspx?id=3338

http://www.jeffgreefwoodworking.com/...ut/index2.html

Same idea for 'flattening' or thicknessing a board.

On Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:36:30 GMT, "Bob" wrote:

Hi, I'm a bit of a newbie to this, but am starting a project that needs 1/2
inch stock and need to plane my 3/4 inch stock to thickness. I'm not
fortunate enough to have a thickness planer and I suck at planning long wide
boards to a constant even thickness. I've been thinking about it and
wondered if I could somehow create a jig for my router and a flat bottom
bit.

I remember a while back reading an article about how someone releveled their
warped workbench using a similar jig, so am wondering if there are some
shopbuilt jigs that could do this with smaller pieces. Most of my stock is
7 inches wide so my guess is that it's possible to build something that the
router plate could run on and use the bit to take the stock down to a
consistent thickness. I could try to design one myself but am hoping
someone out there as been there and done that.


I just flattened a couple of 48" x 30" x 1.675" maple glue-ups with a
router sled. The butcher-block desk tops were heavy enough that could
just lay then on my workbench without fear of them moving. Three
spacers were placed under the blank to make sure it did not rock. A
couple of 2" angle irons were clamped to the bench top which left
about 8" of free space on each side of the blank. I used some 1.5"
angle iron for the cross pieces and made a new router base out of 1/4"
masonite. The underside of the router base wah rough chamfered with a
sander to clear the radius on the inside of the angle iron. I cut
some spacers to set the correct distance between the two cross pieces
so the inside spacing was about 1/2" wider than the router base. "C"
clamps held the spacers to the 1.5" angle iron and they also let me
clamp the cross pieces to the long (2") angle iron with spring clamps
after I had moved the cross pieces and was ready to make another pass
with the router (with a 3/4" flat cutting bit).

It was helpful to mill a spacer to help set the cross pieces between
one pass and the next. A couple of pieces on low-friction tape on the
bottom of the router base helped, and I blew all of the chips away
with compressed air before moving the cross pieces. (At least during
the first, roughing, pass. Subsequent passes didn't generate as much
sawdust.
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