How to Plane Wood Without a Planer

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The lumber section of many home improvement stores are overflowing with crowned, cupped, or bowed lumber. A high quality planer can fix many of these imperfections. However, a planer capable of righting these kinds of wrongs are expensive and rare in most hobbyist’s garages.

If you need a straight, flat board to complete your project, there are numerous ways to plane wood without a planer. Some of the following methods will actually allow you to plane large pieces of timber beyond what most consumer planers allow!

Using a Table Saw to Plane Wood

First I will look at using a tablesaw to plane wood. Table saws are versatile and great at ripping dimensional lumber. A rip cut is a long straight cut along the length of a board.

For my first method using the table saw, I will focus on rip cuts. By using rip cuts, a table saw can be a stand-in planer for smaller dimensional lumber.

To use a table saw for the method, your table saw needs to be equipped with a large table and secure fence lock. If the piece of wood you need to plane has odd angles, or rough edges, move on to the next method. Wood with live edges are also generally not good candidates for this method.

This method will help you create smooth edges similar to what can be accomplished with a jointer or planer.

carpenter using table saw cutting a plane wood

Tools:

  • PPE: hearing protection and safety goggles
  • Tape measure or caliper
  • Engineer’s square
  • Featherboard
  • Riving knife
  • Push stick

Preparing Dimensional Lumber for the Table Saw

  1. With your dimensional lumber lying on a flat surface, locate the narrowest width of the board using calipers or a tape measure.
  2. Unplug your table saw.
  3. Use an engineer’s square to ensure that your table saw blade is at precisely 90-degrees from the table. You can also use a digital angle gauge designed for a table saw to measure.
  4. Using calipers or a tape measure, adjust your table saw fence so that the distance between your fence and the saw-blade face nearest the fence are precisely the distance of the narrowest part of your board. (This is the measurement you found in step 1.)
  5. Adjust your table saw featherboard to apply moderate tension to your dimensional lumber to keep the lumber against the fence.
  6. Ensure that your riving knife is properly set up. The riving knife helps to prevent the gap between the offcut and the board from closing. When this gap closes it can cause dangerous kickback.

Your table saw is now ready to plane the outside edges of your dimensional lumber.

Planing Your Outside Edges of Dimensional Lumber with a Table Saw

  1. Put on your personal protection equipment including goggles and hearing protection.
  2. Power on the saw.
  3. Feed the dimension lumber carefully through the table saw using a push stick when your hand is anywhere near the blade.
  4. After the board has passed completely through the table saw, stop the saw.
  5. Use calipers to measure the narrowest width of the board again.
  6. Adjust the distance between the table saw fence and the saw-blade face nearest the fence to match your distance from step 5.
  7. Adjust your featherboard if necessary.
  8. Power on the saw.
  9. Pass the board through the table saw using a push stick anytime your hand would be near the saw blade.

Continue this process of flipping the board over and adjusting the fence until your outside edges are perfectly square. If the faces of the board need to be planed, move on to the next method!

Using a Router to Plane Wood

A powerful router can be used to create a custom planer that can be made to fit nearly any planing application you can dream up. In order to use a router as a planer, you will have to do some extra construction.

carpenter using a router cutting a plane wood

A router-as-planer requires the creation of a jig, many times called a router sled. The jig or router sled needs a frame that fits around the piece to be planed. Then, the router sled or jig will rest and move on the frame to plane your wood. 

This slide frame will allow you to route forwards and backs as well as side to side across your project. A frame and router jig will allow you to plane unusual pieces of wood. 

Live edge or cross-cut roots and stumps can be planed with this setup.This method will work with popular epoxy projects that use live-edge wood and resin to make tabletops.

Tools:

  • Router
  • Screwdriver
  • Straight and true dimensional lumber for a frame
  • Straight and true plywood
  • Holesaw
  • Power drill
  • Countersink drill bit
  • Level

Creating a Frame for Your Router Sled

  1. The wood used to build your frame must be at least as tall at the highest point of your piece to be planed.
  2. The frame needs to be a rectangle around your piece to be planed. With the piece laying as flat as possible, find your the widest points left-to-right and front-to-back.
  3. Cut dimension lumber to the appropriate length to make a rectangle around your work.
  4. Screw the frame together and place the frame around your project.
  5. Using a spirit or digital level to make sure the frame is level around the entirety of your project. Use sandpaper or shims as necessary to make your frame level.

Now that your simple frame is created, it is time to make your router sled.

Creating a Router Sled

We recommend using plywood to create your sled. Plywood tends to be smooth. The manufacturing process used to create it means that plywood has remarkable strength given its thinness.

The plywood you use must be at least a third wider than your frame. This will allow you to route all the way to the edge of your frame using the router sled. The sled should extend at least 6 inches beyond the router and several inches before.

If you are using the router sled to plane an extremely large piece, it may be necessary to screw straight dimensional lumber across the width of your plywood for rigidity. 

  1. Unscrew your baseplate from the router.
  2. Using your base plate as a template, make the center hole of the router and baseplate screw holes on your sled. For small wood projects, putting the router baseplate holes in the center of the sled is fine. For large projects, I recommend the router baseplate holes be 2/5 of away from the edge of the board at its widest point.
  3. Use an appropriately sized holesaw to drill out the center of the router template.
  4. Use a countersink bit to create recessed holes for your baseplate screw.
  5. Attach the router to your router sled.

Using Your Router Sled to Plane Wood Without a Planer

With your frame and router sled constructed, it is time to plane!

  1. With a flat-tipped routing bit, adjust your router depth to be 1/32” below the highest point of your project.
  2. Put on safety gloves, goggles, and hearing protection.
  3. Make sure the routing bit is not contacting your project, then power on your router.
  4. Move your router sled methodically, front-to-back and left to right to ensure your highest points are routed down.
  5. Power of your router and lower the cutting bit another 1/32”.
  6. With the router bit not touching the work surface, power on the router.
  7. Router the surface of the project again.
  8. Continue to lower the bit 1/32” and routing the entire surface until the entire piece is smooth.
Hand Plane Basics: How to Use Your Hand Planer

Conclusion

Both table saws and routers can be a craftsman’s best friend. These versatile tools can allow you to plane tricky wood in your workshop without investing hundreds of dollars into a scarcely used piece of equipment. 

An expert at home repair, remodel, and DIY projects for nearly 40 years. His first experience came in completely restoring an antique home. Completely redone from the inside out, and restored to its original form, the home is a featured design by renowned Southern California Architect Cliff May, considered to be the father of the California Ranch Home. Now Dennis spends his time on fine woodworking projects and tool comparisons.