PREPARING LUMBER
The first job in a cabinetmaking project involves preparing your stock. If you own a jointer, a planer and a table saw, you can do the work yourself.
Whether to construct a large cabinet or a miniature jewelry box, lumber is generally prepared in the same way. The procedures you follow depend on how the wood was surfaced before you bought it. For rough boards, you start by smoothing one face on the jointer, then one edge. This will give you adjoining surfaces that are perfectly square to each other. Next, pass the second face through a planer so that the faces are parallel. Now you can rip your boards to width and crosscut them to length.
For S2S lumber, which has already had both faces surfaced, you need only
pass one edge across the jointer, then rip and crosscut. S4S wood, with all four surfaces dressed, can be cut to width and length immediately; only edges that will be glued together need to be jointed.
Although lumber with defects should be avoided, you may find yourself with a few warped boards you do not want to discard. Several simple techniques for salvaging defective stock are shown on pages 54 and 55. A cupped board can be ripped into several narrower pieces, in effect flattening the curve into strips that can be jointed. A crooked or bowed board can be salvaged on the jointer by gradually cutting away the high spots. And a simple jig can be used with the table saw to transform a board with an uneven edge into a square piece.
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SURFACING STOCK
Set a cutting depth between Vie and Vs inch. Joint a board face as shown in the photo above. To joint an edge, feed the stock slowly across the cutterhead, making sure that the knives are cutting with the grain (page 29). While feeding the workpiece over the knives, use a hand-over-hand motion to keep downward pressure on the piece just to the outfeed side of the cutterhead, maintaining pressure against the fence. Continue these movements until you finish the cut.
SALVAGING WARPED LUMBER
Ripping cupped stock into narrow boards
This technique for salvaging cupped boards involves the band saw, but you can achieve the same result with a table saw or a radial arm saw. If you are using a band saw, install your widest blade and set up a rip fence on the machine’s table. Set the width of cut; the narrower the setting, the flatter the resulting
boards. To make a cut, set the board convex (high) side up on the table and, butting the board against the fence, feed it steadily into the blade (above). Make sure that neither hand is in line with the cutting edge. Finish the cut with a push stick. Remove any remaining high spots on the jointer (page 55).
JOINTING CROOKED OR BOWED STOCK
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SHOPTIP
5traightening out an uneven edge
Even out the edges of a crooked board on the table saw with a shop-made jig. Cut a piece of 3A-inch plywood with perfectly parallel edges. Place the squarely on top of the plywood, with the uneven part overhanging one edge. Butt stop blocks against the trailing end and edge of the board as shown, then screw the blocks to the plywood. Attach toggle clamps to the blocks and press the clamps down to secure the board to the jig. Set the width of cut equal to the width of the plywood piece and slide the jig acroes the saw table, cutting the edge of the board straight.
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