I work with a lot of large, live-edge wooden slabs. Many are wider than 12" so I can’t use the jointer, but they are under 20" wide so I can plane them if I get one flat side. Just wondering if there is already a sled made for any of the hand-held routers that I can use. Obviously I can bring some lumber to make the rails, but I don’t want to buy the wood to make a sled if we already have one. If there isn’t already a sled I’ll just make one and leave it up there so anyone can use it.
No sleds last time I was there but the multicam is great for this. I gave Andrew a slab and he flattened it on the multicam both sides.
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Yes, I definitely want to get to that point, but I’m the new guy with no training on the cnc and no contacts yet lol. Long term I can’t wait to flatten on the multicam!
I’d trade you a bunch of CNC flattening for a live edge piece, if you’re getting them for cheap 
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I have a sled I used with my Ryobi to flatten my blacksmithing anvil stump.
I am out of town til the end of October but I’d be glad to let you use it once I’m back if you can wait that long.
They are dead easy to make: three pieces of plywood with screws, nails, and/or glue to hold them together. First piece needs to be a few inches wider than the router base and several inches longer than 2x the width of piece to be flattened. The other two pieces are just used for stiffening so need to be same length and at least 2" tall. Attach edges of stiffeners by screwing/nailing through face of larger piece. Countersink if needed to keep bottom smooth.
Set the router plate in the center to mark the center hole and mounting holes. Drilling the holes slightly oversized makes mounting easier and won’t hurt functionality.
Once drilled, countersink the underside of the mounting holes. You’ll need to get longer mounting bolts for your router to account for the thickness of the plywood.
I probably spent less than 30 mins start to finish making mine, using scrap plywood I had on hand.
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Buying from a sawmill up in Telephone, TX, anywhere from $80 to $150 per slab. Usually on the cheaper side when freshly cut and needs drying time. I think I’ll probably go the router sled for this piece I am working now as I already have it sold and need to knock it out pretty soon. May take you up in the future though.
I was planning to do the type that you don’t mount the router, you make the cutting slot the length of the sled so you keep the sled in one spot and move the router back and forth across the board. The sled only moves down the board, not across while cutting, that was it doesn’t have to be 2x the width.
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I need a sled too. I have a lot of live edge mesquite.
A friend made one but I can buy the lumber and provide the hardware.
Or I can trade IanLee for some lessons. I would love to learn how to use the CNC machine. I use all the others in the wood shop and took the class about 2 years ago.
Fear has kept me back from delving deeper but I need to overcome it some day to move from the stone age. Stone, not stoned, I might add…
I have a sled that I made for the planer. It basically makes the planer work kind of like a jointer. It’s MDF and has a heel on one edge. You just get it as level as possible, wedge it in and hot glue it to the board then plane it. Once the top is flat you can pop it off and plane the bottom as usual. Let me know if you want to go that route and I could probably run it over to the space this week around lunch. If it wont be in the way, I’m fine with leaving it up there for anyone to use.
I’m not following. So it is basically a piece of MDF and you try to get your board adhered to the MDF where it won’t move, then send your board through? Do you use shims to get your board where it isn’t moving as the slab I am working on has some decent warping. Unfortunately my slab is about 12.5 inches wide so just too big to go through the jointer.
pretty much like this… except the back heel is just glued, not screwed. I did some pecan that was all kinds of twisted, worked great.
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Love it! I think that is the easiest option. If you are willing to take it up there tomorrow I will go after work and get this slab flattened. How long is your sled? The board I’m working with is a little over 8’, so if it isn’t that long I’ll just stop by a big box store and pick up some MDF and make one myself.
It’s probably about 5’ long, it probably wouldn’t work for a slab that size. Grab some MDF and make one. It would be ideal to have some room past the end of the slab so you can wedge all around it. But it it’s not too twisted you can probably get away with an 8’ board. You might get an extra set of hands too. 8’ of slab and 8’of MDF is going to get pretty heavy. Good luck!
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Any specific reason to use MDF over plywood? Just curios as I have some sheets of plywood already that I could possibly use.
Nope, anything that’s super flat should work. I’d make it at least 1/2" thick or it will bow and pop the shims off when you pick it up.
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