I am a bit confused on this one from woodpecker .

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Hobbyman2
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I am a bit confused on this one from woodpecker .

Post by Hobbyman2 »

This not a complaint however it has sparked a bit of questioning on the procedure of squaring a piece .
Was watching a few youtube videos and ran across this one from Woodpecker .
The product appears to be a good system and I dont question it accuracy, the question is , dont you need to take a few measurements to know what edge is out of square before you decide to make a cut on a 60.00 piece of plywood ?? if the sides are parallel maybe the ends are out of square ? I would question the measurements of the sides being parallel and corner to corner measurements before the calibration or set up ? since both ends are factory cut using the same saw , if one end is out of square than both ends are probably out of square ? JMO its hard to imagine a plywood factory is so sloppy ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cDmOHjDh-E
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Re: I am a bit confused on this one from woodpecker .

Post by RFGuy »

Yeah, I get your point, but this has been quite common in most woodworking videos online that talk about cutting sheet goods (they all seem to regurgitate the same script). I think in the Woodpecker video he is trying to show you after putting the track with Woodpecker square on it you can see down the length of that edge that it is out of square so he is just making one clean edge that is square to an adjacent edge. You could argue that depending on how out of square each corner is that he may have picked the wrong side to square first causing potentially more wasted material than is necessary. For me, this video copies the same oft repeated advice on handling sheets goods, i.e. that a factory edge can't be trusted and that a woodworker must always make a 1st clean cut like this before proceeding to square up the rest. I haven't worked with a ton of sheet goods in my shop, but often times I can use a factory edge to start with. It just depends on how clean that edge is which is often a function of how well I take care of the plywood from lumber yard to my shop. Also depends on what is being built, e.g. shop cabinets are more forgiving that house furniture (bookcases, kitchen cabinets, dresser panels, etc.).
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Re: I am a bit confused on this one from woodpecker .

Post by twistsol »

Plywood or other sheet goods might be square from the factory, but I wouldn't trust it, ever. Usually there are some dings and damage to the edges and corners anyway. My first step with all sheet goods is to trim 1/4" or so from the long edge, then square an end and mark those edges so I know which ones I can reference.

This, or one of the many clones is the pice to make the squaring cut with a track saw.

https://tsoproducts.com/tso-guide-rail- ... il-square/
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Re: I am a bit confused on this one from woodpecker .

Post by Hobbyman2 »

Two good post , on a flip side unless you measure and check for squareness / straightness how would you know if you can trust the square ? with the cost of sheet materials now , one would tend to believe the factory might save / make money by making the product as true as possible .for me Its tough enough to see 60.00 sheet goods, than need to cut a percentage off in waste . This makes the product even more expensive per usable BDFT .
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Re: I am a bit confused on this one from woodpecker .

Post by DLB »

Always a good idea to keep in mind the difference between a marketing video and a woodworking video. If I'm working with a 5' X 5' sheet of plywood, why would I assume it has four 'factory' corners? More likely is has two or zero. He's demo-ing a parallel cut system and does a good job bringing other Woodpecker products into the demo, I would guess well over $1K total by the time we used a square and partner product so we could square a 'factory' corner. But I have to say I'd be much more interested in how square the corners he ended up with were if I was going to believe this produced table saw quality results. Unfortunately, he doesn't check those. I agree with the premise that sometimes sheet goods are hard to manage on a table saw unless you have a really nice one. But I learned to overcome this with a circular saw to reduce the sheet into manageable pieces many years before I first heard of a track saw. Facing the same situation, I would have made one cut to reduce the sheet to manageable size and everything else on the table saw. Perhaps in less time than it would take to unpack this cool product from the box, assemble, and calibrate it, and for sure with table saw quality results.

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Re: I am a bit confused on this one from woodpecker .

Post by edma194 »

twistsol wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 9:36 am Plywood or other sheet goods might be square from the factory, but I wouldn't trust it, ever. Usually there are some dings and damage to the edges and corners anyway. My first step with all sheet goods is to trim 1/4" or so from the long edge, then square an end and mark those edges so I know which ones I can reference.
I'm curious why you start with the long edge. I try to save the squaring for after I cut up a sheet, but for a whole sheet I start with the shorter cut to square an end to one of the sides.
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Re: I am a bit confused on this one from woodpecker .

Post by Hobbyman2 »

Agree edma194 ,,

I realize he was demonstrating the functions / operations and the precision of his square , His video was about squaring a factory sheet because factory sheets are not square , he never double checked or proved the sides of the plywood piece was not true , or that his square was more accurate than the edge of the plywood ? If the sides are parallel than the ends would be the issue , he never used his square on the opposing edge to check or validate his set up . jmo

I believe a common drywall t-square would serve the same purpose ?

I was just a bit confused , not so much why he did what he did but on how he did what he did , and how he achieved the end result of his board being exactly 4ft wide with square ends and parallel sides .
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Re: I am a bit confused on this one from woodpecker .

Post by RFGuy »

Hobbyman2 wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 1:27 pm Agree edma194 ,,

I realize he was demonstrating the functions / operations and the precision of his square , His video was about squaring a factory sheet because factory sheets are not square , he never double checked or proved the sides of the plywood piece was not true , or that his square was more accurate than the edge of the plywood ? If the sides are parallel than the ends would be the issue , he never used his square on the opposing edge to check or validate his set up . jmo
He showed the plywood wasn't square at about 7:35 into the video using his 2616 square, but also at around 8:18 using the tracksaw square with the track. Presumption is the tracksaw square is square enough and matches/beats the 2616 for squareness. It looked like a pretty sloppy piece of plywood to me in the video...
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Re: I am a bit confused on this one from woodpecker .

Post by twistsol »

edma194 wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 1:03 pm
twistsol wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 9:36 am Plywood or other sheet goods might be square from the factory, but I wouldn't trust it, ever. Usually there are some dings and damage to the edges and corners anyway. My first step with all sheet goods is to trim 1/4" or so from the long edge, then square an end and mark those edges so I know which ones I can reference.
I'm curious why you start with the long edge. I try to save the squaring for after I cut up a sheet, but for a whole sheet I start with the shorter cut to square an end to one of the sides.
I start with the long edge simply because it is easier to align my 1400mm (55") track to be square to the long edge after it is clean and straight than it is to wrestle my 2700mm (106") track square to the short edge.

Working with a track saw, every cut is the final cut. Typically when building cabinets, after I clean and square one corner, I cut the sheets to width and then once they are all at finished cabinet depth minus face frame thickness if appropriate, I cut the sides, top and floor to length.

Building a kitchen full of cabinets, it makes the process fast and consistent. When doing one off furniture pieces, If sheet goods are involved I rough cut to break down sheets with the track saw and finish cut width on the tablesaw. Squaring and final cut to length are done at my MFT.
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Re: I am a bit confused on this one from woodpecker .

Post by reible »

I remember a time when the trend was to use the plywood because it had a nice factory edge and would be pretty darn square. Of course it was all made in the good old USA and profit while important wasn't job one. Those days are long gone.

The thing is you use plywood for various projects and as such how you treat the subject is dependent on that. If I were say to make a bunch of shelf units for my garage that would be very different then some fancy shelf for in the house. If I were using the plywood to make a jig for some sort of use where I would be depending on the jig for years to come, well I would treat it different then something I slopped together to get me in the ball park.

So if one is making say kitchen cabinets, they have a pretty standard size and you don't really have to deal with trying to use every square inch of the sheet, and in fact you will not be able to. The scrap of course can be used for bracing or kick plates or what ever but the parts you want to keep good are the important ones. It is assumed that the factory edge has at the very least has some damage and at worse some bad damage. You want to clear that away and that is most often cut one. It is taken off a long edge and is in the order of 5 or 6 mm or about a 1/4". You do a quick reference off the factory edge to do this.

Now that you have a clean edge to work from you do the other long cuts keeping them parallel to that edge or last cut. At this point you don't car if they are square to any other edge, just parallel.

Next come the cross cuts. Again you use those parallel cut edges and then square off of them. If you have say an MFT then you have a known clean edge against a fence and a track that is 90 degrees so again you trim an edge and then the length measurement is taken off that edge. If you are using a guide saw system then they have rail squares that serve that function.

Keep in mind that actual measurement is not as critical as the parts all being the same. Of course you do need to be close with the actual measurements but as a wood worker you know that.

As in all woodworking some skills are needed. When I first stated using the guided say system I was surprised a few times with things not being as perfect as I would have liked. The good news was that I soon was getting results that rivaled my table saw skills and soon surpassed them on panel sized pieces. Breaking down sheet goods has never been easier or better then where I am now.

Guided saw system could replace table saws for some people but I like to have both. I have to say my shopsmith gets a LOT less use now then before I went down the Festool path but that is a good thing for me. Especially when it comes to dust collection......... one of my messy jobs now is drilling..........or using the table saw.

I'm totally sold on this guided saw system and would NEVER want to go back to just a table saw for panels. I have several straight edge circular saw guide system and I never use them anymore, should part with them I guess as I just can't see ever wanting to use them ever again. Like wise I have a few circular saws and I don't use them much either, no construction project going on which is what they are good for, not breaking down sheet goods.

The bad part is the cost of this version of panel cutting, not for everyone's budget.

Ed
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