Finally tried a router sled for flattening slabs - wish I'd done it sooner

I was sure my planer and hand planes were good enough, but after spending 4 hours on a walnut slab with tearout everywhere I gave in. The sled got it flat in 45 minutes with zero mess - has anyone else had that moment where you admit you were wrong about a tool?

2 comments

2 Comments

wyatt_shah851mo ago

Figured out the same thing last year with my jointer. I spent years fighting snipe and winding boards through it when a simple jig and a router would have done the job cleaner and faster. Its like when I finally gave up trying to sharpen my own chainsaw blades and just paid someone five bucks to do it right. Took me four chains to realize my time and frustration was worth more than the twenty bucks I was trying to save. What finally made you pull the trigger on the sled?

graym491mo ago

Real talk, what finally did it was the third time in a week I had to plane a board down to almost nothing just to get past the snipe at both ends. That's when I looked at the scrap pile and realized I was basically making expensive sawdust. The moment of clarity came when I spent more time tuning the jointer than actually working on the project. So I built the sled in an afternoon and haven't looked back, though I did have to buy a second router after I burned up the first one from using it too hard.