Machining Small Parts Safely

This article deals with safe practices when working with small wood pieces on saws and planers. Most woodworkers use dry, rough-sawn timber. The drying process causes and then ‘locks’ in some stresses, especially in figured woods. The aim is to arrive at a finished component that is not still trying to pull this way or that due to stresses within its structure. By ‘component’ we mean a wooden part that is dimensioned to final specifications.

Downsizing is better

While many makers plane and thickness full length and full width boards to final thickness prior to downsizing into individual components, it is better to take rough-sawn boards down to the smallest, workable section and length on the bandsaw before further individual machining.

These smaller pieces must still retain enough ‘meat’ on them for proper dimensioning later, and yet cannot be too short to plane and thickness safely. The minimum length, I would say, is the measurement between your thickness planer’s in-feed and out-feed rollers, plus 100mm – around 300mm in total (photo 1).

How to downsize safely

If I’m making a structure that is curvilinear and uses mainly shortish lengths (such as chair).