How to Mill Wood || Become a Better Woodworker

This video was sponsored by Policy Genius. Hey, in this video I thought I would do something that you guys were asking for, you know, way back in the day and you've been asking and you keep asking and I keep not doing it. So in this video I'm going to do it and that is do a video on my milling process. Now if you don't know what milling is when it comes to woodworking, well don't worry, I'm going to walk you through the entire thing. I'm going to show you how I mill wood, I'm going to show you some key things you should be thinking about when you mill wood, and I'm going to show you some tricks to do if you don't have all the fancy tools and you still want to make sure that your wood is milled up correctly and square and flush and flat and all that stuff. So follow along, check the link in the video description down there. There's also a link to our new YouTube channel. That's right, we started another YouTube channel. It's called Bourbon Bites. It's bite-sized little projects that you can sink your teeth into in five minutes or less. You might want to check it out, but for now let's mill some stuff. Okay. Milling. What the heck am I even talking about? Milling is common vernacular for preparing a piece of wood to be used in a building project. This could mean getting a straight edge on it, this could mean getting it square, this could mean changing the thickness to the right dimension that you need for whatever project you're doing. Milling just means altering a board from one state to a better state. Now you might think the first step in the milling process is throwing that board onto some fancy piece of tool or equipment, but that's not exactly right. The first step in the milling process actually starts when you're picking out the wood that you're going to purchase. Because as you're going to see in this video, there are some boards that you buy at the store and no matter how well you mill them, they're never going to work for your project because they're beyond what is able to be fixed in the milling process. If you don't understand, just let me show you kind of in a visual layout of exactly what I'm talking about. Come here. Now one of the first things you want to look at when you're purchasing wood from the lumber store is if the board has the bow in it, as I like to call it. Now the bow can come in two different forms. If you're looking at the side of the board it can look like this, where there's a nice bow at the bottom edge of the board there. Or the bow can be like if you look at the edge of the board, see how the whole board is bowed from the front to the back. Now the reason this is an issue that you have to think of when you're going to be milling up your wood is if the bow is too extreme, it really reduces the amount of viable wood you can get from any board because of the way you have to mill it. Let's look at this first example here. If you're going to cut this bow out of the board, you basically have to find a straight line. So you've got to come up to the first point here and you're going to cut that across. That's going to give you a straight edge on the board right there. Well then you still have this bow on the top here, so you're going to have to come up to these two points on the top here and cut another line. So what you have is you have a board that originally was let's say six inches wide, but after you mill it and you cut out that bow on the top and the bottom, well now you're only going to be left with two and a half or three inches of wood. So you have to think about that when you're purchasing your wood. Is there too much of a bow that I can even get a good amount of wood out of it that I need for my project? The same thing happens from the side profile here if the board is bowed and this is even a little more extreme. You're going to have to come all the way up here to get a straight line and then if you want to do the same thing on the top, well you're going to have to come I mean so far down that by the time you get that corrected you're going to be left with this tiny thin strip of wood here. So that's one thing you want to look at, is the board bowed? But there's more than just that, let's move on. The next thing I always look for when I'm purchasing wood and I know I'm going to have to mill it up is, is that wood twisted? The ominous twist. And what I mean by that, it's a little hard to draw, is that the board is angled one way on the front and then it twists and is angled another way on the back. The reason this is a problem is to mill this up and get a nice flat surface. If we draw a line here you're going to have to remove all of this material down here to get a flat edge, but then because it's twisted on the top you're also going to have to remove all of this material up here on the top. So you're going to be left with this nice square flat piece in the middle, which is fine if it's not too twisted, you just have to make sure by the time you mill that down that this thickness here is still going to be thick enough for whatever you're planning on building. Because sometimes by the time you get this milled this is going to be down to a quarter or a half inch and that's just not going to work for your project. So make sure you're watching out for the twist when you're picking out your lumber. The last one I like to look for when I'm purchasing wood is the dreaded cup. Now the cup is where the board is actually arced along the entire length of the board and you get this cupping effect. The reason you want to check this out is the same reason as the other ones, is because in order to get a flat edge you're going to have to cut along the bottom and remove these portions that are sticking down because it's cupped. And then what we do to one side to get it flat we're going to have to do the same thing to the other side and we're going to have to come up here. Now it's all right to get boards that have a twist or a bow or a cup as long as the margins are small enough that you can still get good viable material on the interior here. You just don't want something that's so extremely cupped that the amount you're going to be left with after you mill it down is so small that you're not going to be able to use it. So what's the most important first step in the milling process? Well it's actually picking out wood that's not overly bowed or twisted or cupped to begin with. There's no reason to make things harder on yourself right from the start. So you have the wood, you've purchased it, you spent all your savings and your allowance, you got it back to your shop, what do you do now? Well you might think you immediately start milling it up. False. What you want to do now is bring it into your shop and let it sit. This is called acclimation because the moisture in the air where you purchase the wood is probably different than the moisture in the air of your own shop. The last thing you want to do is mill all that up and you think you got it perfect and then the moisture changes and it cups or bows or twists after the fact. So the smart thing to do is just let it sit for a day or two in your shop, let it acclimate to its new environment and then after it's done that you can start milling it up. First thing you do before you start actually milling stuff up is look at your project, figure out the smallest you can make your pieces and still use them for whatever piece you're building and pre-cut your pieces down to that length because there's no reason to try and run gigantic pieces across all your heavy equipment. It's just going to make it less accurate and it's going to be more of a pain. So cut everything down to the smallest pieces that you can work with and then start milling them up. Let's do it. That would hurt. When it comes to milling there are three main tools that are used in the milling process. There's a jointer, a planer, and a table saw. I'm going to walk you through each one of those tools and show you exactly how they work starting with the jointer. This is a jointer. Jointer? I hardly know her. Inappropriate. Anyways the jointer is your first line of defense when it comes to your milling process and the reason is because you can get a straight edge or a flat surface on a board without already having a straight edge or a flat surface on a board. It's one of the few tools in your shop that you can do that with. Most other tools you need a reference surface already to flatten or straighten the other sides of your board like the planer or the table saw. Now the way the jointer works is you have your infeed table here. Now I've created this squiggly line on this board to make it just very obvious that it's not straight. So as you run your board across your infeed table it interacts with the blade here. Now the blade is the exact same height as your outfeed table so as the board goes across the blade it gets cut to the exact same height as the outfeed table and then as it goes across the outfeed table that straight line or flat surface is now referencing the flat surface of the outfeed table. Everything's being cut at that exact same height and you have yourself a straight edge. Now there's a few things you want to think about when it comes to the jointer. The first one is the infeed and the outfeed or the wings. Now the longer your infeed or outfeed the more accurate of a cut and the bigger boards you're going to be able to run through your jointer. So that's something you want to think about if you're purchasing one. They make little benchtop jointers but they're just not good for running big material through because you don't have the reference surfaces to get a straight line or a flat surface. The other thing you want to think about is that there's actually two different ways you can run boards through a jointer. One is like this and this is called edge joining where you're joining the edge of a board. The other one is like this and it's called face jointing the board. Now as I mentioned earlier the nice thing about the jointer is it doesn't need a flat surface as a reference to get a flat surface on the board but there's a difference between flat and square. So if you're edge joining a board that hasn't been face jointed, meaning you don't have a flat face, well it's getting a straight edge but it's getting its squareness from referencing this side of the board to the fence here. So you always want to make sure that you're face joining first to get a nice flat face and then you can use that flat face as a reference against your fence and then when you edge joint you're not only getting a straight edge you're getting a square edge which is very important if you're going to be gluing boards up to each other. Oh hey this video is sponsored by our good friends over at PolicyGenius. 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No wonder they have thousands of five-star reviews on Google and Trustpilot. It looks like a person. Now at this point you're probably thinking wow that is simple that is easy I would actually like to check this out but where do I go to do that? Well you just go right here. Your loved ones deserve a financial safety net. You deserve a smarter way to find and buy it. Head to policygenius.com slash bourbon moth or click the link in the description to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you could save. This is a planer or if you're from across the pond it's more appropriately called a thicknesser because that's exactly what it does. It changes the thickness of a board so you can take a board that is three quarters of an inch send it through your planer and you can bring it down to a half inch. Now the most common mistake with the planer is that you can use the planer to get a surface nice and square and flat. It's not exactly true. For example if the bottom of your board is not flat let's say it's got a big curve to it or a bow your board does something crazy and you send it through the planer. Well as it goes through the planer the planer is going to pinch it down and it's going to plane the top of the board so you're going to have a nice flat surface on the top but as it goes through the planer if it's curved it might come in one way and go out the other way. It's not really altering the bottom of the board. Now some people would say well you run it through get the top nice and flat and then you flip it over and do the bottom. This kind of works. You are going to get a smooth surface on the top and bottom but when you look down the line of your board there still might be a bow or a curve to it because it needs a flat surface to reference on the bottom in order to get a perfectly flat surface on the top. So don't rely solely on your planer to get a flat surface on both edges of the board. Now that doesn't mean that you can't use your planer for that purpose. You just have to do a little work to get there but don't worry I'm going to show you an easy way that you can basically use your planer as a joiner and face join a board and get it perfectly square and flat and wonderful and all that good stuff. So if you don't have a joiner and you're trying to use your planer to get a straight flat edge on one side what you're going to have to do is make what's called a planer sled. Now this board as you can see is very wonky on the bottom. Now the problem is if you run this through the planer like this it's going to start out okay but after it gets a certain point through in the planer it's going to get pushed down the other way and you're just not going to get a flat surface. So enter the planer sled. Now you can make a planer sled super simple just with a piece of plywood and a few shims. What you're going to do is you're going to take your board and you're going to stick it wonky side down onto your straight nice piece of plywood. Then you're going to take some shims and you're going to shim underneath it to get rid of any wobble or play in there. Now you want to hook this down. I like to use hot glue just glue the entire thing down because it comes off fairly easy but it's going to hold it strong enough when you're sending it through the planer. Once you get this glued down to your sled well now you can run the whole thing down it's not going to move as you're running it through the planer you're going to get a nice perfectly flat reference surface on the top then you can take it off your sled flip it around and now you have that flat reference surface on the bottom and you can do the same thing to the other side thus eliminating the joiner it just takes a little bit more work but it can be done. That's sharp! The last tool in your milling lineup is the table saw. Now I say it's the last tool because it's kind of the last step in your milling process because before you get here you need to do some work on your board to get a nice straight edge on one of the two sides. The reason is if you have a board that doesn't have a straight edge on either side and you try and run it through the table saw the way the table saw works is it's got a fence which is your reference surface it's nice and flat and square and so you need a straight edge to run along that fence in order to get a straight cut when you're cutting across your blade so if you take a board that doesn't have a straight line and you try and run it along that fence well it's going to put a lot of strain on your blade it's not going to cut right you're going to get burning and it's just going to be an ugly mess so before you get to the table saw we have to do the other steps in the milling process. Now all this is well and good if you have a joiner to get a straight edge on your board first but what if you don't have a joiner and you really need to get a straight edge? There's a simple way that you can do it on your table saw all you need is a piece of plywood that is slightly larger in width than the board you're trying to get a straight edge on and some double-sided tape. Really all you're going to do is stick down a piece of double-sided tape on the edge of your plywood take the board that doesn't have a straight edge overhang everything you want to cut off off the edge of the plywood and stick it down. Now you're going to use the straight edge of the plywood as your reference surface to ride along the fence of your table saw and then all you got to do is run the board through your table saw it's going to cut a perfectly straight edge onto your board and then if you need to you know even out the width you can use that straight edge against your fence and you're good to go. But now that I've shown you the three main tools that you're going to use for milling I'm going to walk you step by step through exactly how I mill up lumber when I get a piece that needs a little work, needs a little help, needs a little love, a little care, a little hug, a little kiss. All right so here I have two boards of five quarter white oak. As you can see they're bowed, they're rough on both sides, splintery, icky, eewy, and if you lay them down on a flat surface well they don't want to lay flat. So I want to get these boards nice and flat and square and ready to be joined together. First things first I got to put in my iso tunes because I want to protect my ears and I also want to protect my eyeballs so safety glasses are a must. Now remember when you're joining a board first you want to face join it. Get a nice flat surface on one side to use as a reference and then after you do that you got it nice and flat you run it through a couple times you can test to see if it's ready to go by putting it on your outfeed table making sure it doesn't rock back and forth or anything like that. Now we are ready to edge join it because we can use that flat surface as a reference along our fence. Now it's really important to keep that tight against the fence so sometimes I like to put on one of these mag switch feather boards just to make sure it doesn't pop away from the fence while I'm running it across the joiner blades. Once you run both of your boards through the joiner it's time to take them over to the planer or thicknesser and bring them down to a uniform size. Remember we're only able to do this because we already got a flat reference surface on the bottom from using the joiner. Once we get them down to the thickness that we want it's finally time to go over the table saw and using our edge jointed side as a reference along our table saw fence we can cut them down to a uniform width. Then the last thing I like to do is just trim off the ends now that we've got a nice flat surface to reference the fence on our miter saw and boom chaka laka laka ding dang doe or another cool saying that would make you think more of me as a person. Just like that our boards are milled up square flat flush and ready to be joined together. As you can see they now look nothing like the boards that I originally started with. Everything looks good and they can be stuck together with a very nice almost invisible seam down the middle which will make gluing them up incredibly easy. That's how I do it. Well there you have it milling 101. Now I know that was a lot of information and between you and me there's a lot I didn't even cover in there. Like for example if you got a long board with a big curve in it and you don't want to run it through your joiner starting out by using the track saw to cut a straight line is a good way to save yourself a lot of time and not have to do all that on the joiner. Or if your fence is out of square you can run each board opposite to each other and it doesn't matter if your fence is square or not on the joiner they'll still hook together. If you don't know what I'm talking about there there's a helpful little tips and trick video that explains it perfectly right somewhere up there. Anyways the important thing is that you'll learn something in that video check out the video description down there below for links to tools and supplies a link to our website where you can get fresh new merch there's also a link to our patreon over there if you want more access to the channel behind the scenes footage live question and answer all that stuff be sure to check that out and uh as always don't cut off your fingers just cut the wood