Planing Wood

April 12, 2017

The 2X4 and 2X6 construction wood needs planing because they are all raw lumber which are slightly curved or slanted.  They also came at slightly different lengths, so we started the day by measuring the pieces.  We will do the cuts accordingly, that way the wood is more efficiently used without wasting too much offcuts.

Since the wood planar is up and running, this is what we started with today.

Before we started, we put on this fence. It seemed to be upside down, but the attachment point can only be inserted this way.  We spend a while trying to figure it out, in the end, this was the only orientation it could be screwed on securely.  So, we have a pretty short fence. They other problem is that there is a tiny gap between the fence and the blade.  Therefore, when we run the wood over, there's always this narrow chunk that doesn't get cut.  We solved this problem by manually chiseling off this narrow chunk.

Here's a video showing the chiseling process (Will be uploaded once I have wifi)

After several experiments, we developed this process on the planar that helped us make all the 2x4 and 2x6 have all 90 degree corners, and perfectly flat planes on every side.

Awkward fence now set up

Since this planar was bought used, some screws were loose.  We improvised by sticking stuff in between the loose gaps.

Using a spirit level to make sure planar is completely leveled to ground. Since ground is not flat here, we added cardboard below the legs to raise each corner as needed.

This is the process we need to do for every piece of lumber

Me putting the lumber in the resize feeder

The power went out in the afternoon, and lasted until about 10pm.  I got flashlights from William.  He told me to keep them as the power goes out quite often. It was fun to walk around pitch-black with a flashlight. Everywhere you point to with your flashlight looks kind of scary like in a horror movie or game.  We went outside to test how far the flashlight goes, it goes pretty far!!  The night sky was beautiful, with tons of stars.  Tonight was my first time to take a shower with a flashlight!  

You can zoom in the flashlight, and pin it at somewhere far!  This is what it looks like outside

Oh, and the chicken laid her first egg today!!  When it looks like the chicken was gonna lay egg, they put her in this basket with a piece of soft fabric underneath, so she won't run around.