Woodworking in your own woodworking shop is a great hobby that offers hours of enjoyment and the self satisfaction of building beautiful pieces of furniture. When milling and truing your own lumber there are often problems that occur do to the nature of the wood. The most common are listed below and suggestions on how to deal with them. The most common milling and truing problems are listed below.

Lumber milling and truing problems:

Snipes: Snipe occurs when the planers in-feed and out-feed tables are not exactly parallel. In many cases just simply realigning the tables will take care of the problem. To be safe, allow for snipe by choosing rough stock that's long enough so that any affected areas can be trimmed away after planing.

Tear outs: Tear outs are caused by feeding the board into the machine against the grain or by taking a cut that's too deep. Flipping the board will usually solve the problem.

Poor quality lumber: Poor quality lumber is a constant problem for DIY woodworkers. Hardwood lumber is referred to as rough-sawn, S2S (surfaced two sides), S3S (surfaced three sides) or S4S (surfaced four sides). You can purchase rough sawn stock at lumber yards which you can transform into S2S, S3S and S4S in your woodworking shop with a jointer and planer.

When you smooth out one face and one edge of a work piece, you create an S2S board. When you smooth the other face of your work piece, you create S3S stock. Then when you cut your work piece to size on the table saw, you end up with an S4S piece.

You probably won't find rough sawn hardwood at an average home supply center. Most of these wood supply centers offer only softwood, framing lumber and a very limited selection of milled hardwood. Contractor or specialty lumberyards are a good source for rough lumber.

Specialty yards stock large supplies of hardwoods that are used in cabinet making and furniture building. These specialty lumber yards are an excellent place to purchase a wide variety of hardwoods.

Lumber milling and lumber truing tips:

Never attempt to joint a piece of wood that is less than ½ inch thick.
Never trail your fingers or thumb behind a work piece.
Don't use a planer for work pieces that are shorter than the width of the planer table or shorter than the distance between feeder rollers.
Feed only one piece at a time through a thickness planer.
Don't force a work piece through a thickness planer. Let the machine work at its designed rate.
When planing long work pieces, have a helper support the board as it emerges from the machine, or set up out feed support.
Never put your hands into a thickness planer to retrieve a work piece or clear away shavings. Use a long push stick to extend your reach.

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