Squaring

What is the best way to square up a board with minimal tools or another way to put it is, what is the bare minimum tools needed to accurately square up a board in length, width, and thickness? If you go hand tool route? If you go power tool route?

Best is a going to be a matter of opinion as well as depending on what dimension board you want to square. Fewest tools you can do it with is one: a good table saw. Not the most economical route and you of course have to square IT up somehow, but that’s a larger discussion.  

You can also do it with a circular saw and a home made fence and a square much more cheaply, though repeatable cuts tend to be quite a bit more challenging if you go that route. 

as mentioned above, depending how large the board is, there are a few things that can be done with limited tools.

1) tape measure/pencil 3.4.5 method and  hand saw for length and width but thickness needs more tools 

remember there are 14 places a board can be out of square

jointer and table saw is the best way to achieve this

Thickness is going to be a challenge for hand tools. Of course you can hand plane something to thickness and true it up using winding sticks and lots of elbo grease. However a planer and/or jointer is the tool of choice. Once again it depends on the size of the board you are working with.

Truing up a long board is something I use my tracksaw for and the only method I have short of using another straight board and table saw.

I found that my 20v planer is hard to keep square. too much pressure on one side and it’ll start to slope. Unless I was using it wrong. This is what was happening to me.

I made a quick oblique view of how my boards turned out after planing the edge. The grey indicates square corners. The top surface has a slope. I’m guessing too much pressure on either the left side or right side of the 20v planer caused the slope? maybe the 20v planer wasn’t quite flat on the board?

I think your blades may not bet set to the proper depth. I’ve never had that problem but I can imagine if one side of the blade isn’t all the way down that the result would be a cut like you’re describing. I’d remove your blades, make sure the slots of perfectly clean, and reinstall. 

Hugh Jass wrote:

16 hours ago, Hugh Jass said:

I think your blades may not be set to the proper depth. I’ve never had that problem but I can imagine if one side of the blade isn’t all the way down that the result would be a cut like you’re describing. I’d remove your blades, make sure the slots of perfectly clean, and reinstall. 

Was first time I used the 20v hand planer. In fact first time I had ever used any hand planer. 

Jronman wrote:

3 hours ago, Jronman said:

Was first time I used the 20v hand planer. In fact first time I had ever used any hand planer. 

Keep at it and you’ll get it. It Takes some time to develop a good technique 

mike_dave wrote:

8 minutes ago, mike_dave said:

Keep at it and you’ll get it. It Takes some time to develop a good technique 

yes my first board I cut three times and it was still to short…..lol

For hand tools if your cutting a some what small piece you could use a miter box 

for power tools a miter saw or table saw would work great but pretty expensive a circular saw would work too and to make it more accurate you can use a speed square with it and for wider cuts Kreg make a circular saw jig

here is another one from Kreg, set it to your saw and forget it works good

[External image (www.kregtool.com), not copied]

comp56 wrote:

here is another one from Kreg, set it to your saw and forget it works good

[External image (www.kregtool.com), not copied]

comp56 wrote:

here is another one from Kreg, set it to your saw and forget it works good

[External image (www.kregtool.com), not copied]

JimboS1ice wrote:

31 minutes ago, JimboS1ice said:

I seen that at lowes but I still prefer my 12″ rafter square, at least you get more than 1 use out of it and it’s not plastic! I think Kreg has gone ape shit with some stuff like this trying to reinvent the wheel


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I give it an A+ actually it works very well once you set the depth to your saw, cuts on line every time

comp56 wrote:

I give it an A+ actually it works very well once you set the depth to your saw, cuts on line every time