How to Tongue & Groove Pine
Tongue and groove pine planking has many uses, including exterior sheathing, subflooring and paneling. Fashioning your own tongue and groove lumber can be a terrific project for the advanced woodworker. Preparing and machining your planks actually entails three distinct operations. First, the tongue and groove must be cut into the edges of the plank. Then the plank needs to be run through a planer. This operation machines the wood to a uniform thickness and smooths the surface, removing any raised grain or bumps. However, there are machines available which will perform all three operations simultaneously. Does this Spark an idea?
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Things You'll Need
- Combination tongue and groove machine - planer
- Quantity of sawed and properly dried pine planks
- One or two scrap planks
- A helper
Instructions
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Adjust the width settings of the tongue and groove machine. This will be accomplished by moving the cutting heads located along the sides beneath the cover of the machine. The cutters can also be adjusted based upon the depth of the groove and length of the tongue you wish to make.
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Adjust the height of the planer knives. The knives will cut the planks to a uniform thickness while smoothing the front and back surfaces. When the plank emerges from the other side of the machine, it will look exactly like a piece of furnished lumber that you would buy at a lumberyard.
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Power on the individual motors that drive the cutters and knives. Wait a few moments until the cutters reach their maximum speed, which may be as high as 7,000 rpm.
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4
Feed one of the scrap planks into the machine. This is a test plank used to determine if the cutters and knives have been properly adjusted. When the plank emerges, examine and measure it to ensure that the tongue and groove have been properly cut, and that the plank has been planed and smoothed to a uniform thickness. If you are satisfied with the test, begin machining your pine planks. If the machine requires any fine tuning or adjustment, shut off the motors, perform any adjustments, and run another test piece of scrap through the unit. Pine lumber, especially clear white pine planks, are too expensive to waste.
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Begin feeding your planks into the machine. As they emerge on the other side, have your helper guide them until they are free and then stack them neatly.
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Tips & Warnings
If you intend to produce a large quantity of planed, tongue and groove lumber, purchasing a unit similar to the one described, can be a wise investment. A machine of this type can process a plank in about 30 seconds. As an alternative, if you only need one or two planks, you could cut the tongue and groove on your router table and then run them through a planer. For a skilled woodworker, this will take about 10 minutes per plank.
References
Resources
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