Most of our timber is bought in rough sawn baulks, which we re-saw to the approximate size, then we sticker stack it and leave it to settle before planing it to final size. It can move quite a lot during that process of acclimatising to the correct temperature and humidity. Once we are happy with it, we put a straight face and a straight edge on our roughsawn timber by hand using a no 6 Record plane, making sure that it is straight, square and free from twist. We do have a surface planer (jointer in the USA) but prefer to do the job by hand. After that we are confident enough to run that though the thicknesser (planer in the USA) to bring it to final width and thickness, but we still check as we go to ensure it stay square and straight, correcting it by hand planning if it isn't perfect. We don't have a table saw (apart from our dedicated fretboard slotting set-up), but a saw is merely a tool to rough cut the timber - you need to use a plane to get it accurately straight and square on all four sides. A saw, even a good table saw, can't do the job of a plane. There's no shortcut to getting timber stock properly straight, true and square - it needs planing, whether that's by machine or by hand, and it needs careful and constant checking and measuring. The machinery can help you, but in the final analysis, human hand and eye are the best aids to accuracy.
Great tips.
Thanks for sharing this very informative video. A true eye opener
So if you have one straight flat surface do you dare trust your table saw to square things up or even start from rough timber
Most of our timber is bought in rough sawn baulks, which we re-saw to the approximate size, then we sticker stack it and leave it to settle before planing it to final size. It can move quite a lot during that process of acclimatising to the correct temperature and humidity. Once we are happy with it, we put a straight face and a straight edge on our roughsawn timber by hand using a no 6 Record plane, making sure that it is straight, square and free from twist. We do have a surface planer (jointer in the USA) but prefer to do the job by hand. After that we are confident enough to run that though the thicknesser (planer in the USA) to bring it to final width and thickness, but we still check as we go to ensure it stay square and straight, correcting it by hand planning if it isn't perfect. We don't have a table saw (apart from our dedicated fretboard slotting set-up), but a saw is merely a tool to rough cut the timber - you need to use a plane to get it accurately straight and square on all four sides. A saw, even a good table saw, can't do the job of a plane. There's no shortcut to getting timber stock properly straight, true and square - it needs planing, whether that's by machine or by hand, and it needs careful and constant checking and measuring. The machinery can help you, but in the final analysis, human hand and eye are the best aids to accuracy.