Preparing boxes

I get home and finish working my fulltime job then head out to the shop to process the alder I picked up for the boxes.

As a reminder, these were overages/not quite good enough molding culls from Paxton Woods that I paid $0.22/lineal foot to buy.

My thought was that I would be able to use the planer to cut off the slight raised parts and then split the remaining into two parts and build these boxes out of 3/16″ wood. It started out fine. I created great piles of alder shavings in the driveway. Yes, I had to move out of the garage as I just didn’t have enough room to run 10′ boards through the planer.

Once i got it down flat I determined that there wasn’t any way that I was going to run a 10′ board through the table saw to split it into two parts, so I cut it into 5′ sections. The first cut through the board (with it on its side) went OK, but when I flipped it over it didn’t go quite as well. Then when I flipped it again it became painfully obvious that this was not going to work.

Even if this board went OK, there was a 0% chance that the next 55′ would go as well. So on to plan B – i created more shavings and processed the alder down to 3/8″ like the other boxes we’ve built.

I’ll have to measure (it started to sprinkle so I cleaned up) to be sure I have enough to finish these boxes. If not I have the piece of 8/4 alder that I can resaw down to 7/16-1/2″ and run through the planer to finish up. I’d rather make cubes from it, but you gotta do what you gotta do.