Ugh - flatten crap TnG with a 3-1/4 in. Corded Planer
 

We bought some pine tongue and groove to put on some walls for appearance.

The milling was crap, and these are feeling like siding because the groove is not on the same center as the tongue, so a ton of these are proud of the next by up to 3/64".

I've got a bunch installed and the missus just noticed and freaked. What would be the best way to get this stuff to be flat? Could I use a handheld power planer without mangling things? We are on a pretty tight deadline to get this done. The folks are coming to do the bathroom install next Wed. We've got to get this stuff installed and painted before that. So I've got evenings after work this week and then next weekend for the wood installation and at least 5 coats of paint (primer for resinous wood, 2 coats of primer, and 2 coats of paint).

Or is there a better way besides using the planer.

It doesn't have to be perfectly flat and smooth, but needs to be relatively flat and smooth.

Thanks.

Take it down. Use a table saw to either cut the tongue narrower or the groove wider so that it lies flat. Put it back up. I hope you didn't glue it to the wall.

I think using a handheld planer would just make it worse.

Not glued. Just nailed with brads. I don't think trying to fix the tongues and grooves would work. I also don't currently have a table saw. Maybe with a router table and TnG bits, but I don't have one of those either. If it was the floor, I'd possibly just use my belt sander, but I'd discovered that trying to use a belt sander on a wall is a real b1tch.

I'm pretty sure that i could get it good enough to make her happy with a hand plane, but not in the time that we have (and frankly I don't want to do that much hand planing, at least not with the pressure on to get finished in a short time)

If you have a belt sander and a time constraint, I don't think you have much choice. Try to use more than just your arms and elbows if it's low on the wall. Go through the grits. Don't spend a lot of time with heavy grit, just get things going in the right direction. I assume you will have to start cross grain/cross boards. A RO sander starting with 100 should get the wood going back towards being paintable. Nothing past 180 is needed for primer.

If you think it looks bad now, any kind of planer will totally destroy it. Zeke has the right idea.

Is there enough play in the tongue and groove to get some epoxy or hot melt in there and help to get it close? If not just belt sand it as mentioned above.

If it is milled wrong can you get it replaced?

That's what I'd do except for the time issue. I've got more than any one HD within 100 miles has. Any and everyplace that's got it is minimum 50 miles away.

I was going to go to one place that had it in 12' lengths (that wasn't HD), but getting in back from there was going to suck.

OK, thanks. I can do the belt sander (I used in on the floor and the 9.5' ceilings. So far the wall is all below 5', so I can manage this pretty easily (as much as any of this sort of crap is).

The good news is that this is all the idea of the missus, and she's seeing the trouble that it is. At least this isn't going to be my fault.

Previously, I used 80 for the floor, but it was hard as a rock (100 years old). I used it on the ceiling which is this new, young pine with 120 grit (which I've got a bunch more of), and the young pine cuts much faster, so I'm glad I wasn't using 80. I should be able to get the job done with the 120 grit and what's already on the walls.

I have a bunch more to install. I may try to put it together flat on the floor and sand it there and then reassemble it on the wall, as sanding on the wall is a b1tch.

Nope, it's pretty tight.

That was my fear. I could manage with a hand plane (if I had months), but I don't, so....

3/64 of an inch is well within spec for pine tongue and groove. How wide are these boards? You’re going to have expansion and contraction with pine in the humidity of Houston. It certainly can move this much. Are you talking shiplap or beaded tongue in groove with the backside being a V groove at the joint?
If this is knotty pine, I’m very familiar with this type of product as the ceiling in our family room has 8” and I have about 1000 ft.² of the 12 inch boards inside my garage. If you decide to paint this type of product, you’re going to have to use a shellac base primer as the knots will bleed through anything water-based.

It's 1x4, so the face of the board that you see is 3". The back is completely flat and the front is beaded. We are putting the back out (like the rest of the house, floors and walls). It's pine but there are no knots in any of the boards.

We do have a special primer specifically for this sort of wood (but like I said, no knots). And then another primer to go over the first primer.

I'm on board with rockfan4 and Zeke. A power planer could make a mess of things quick, fast and in a hurry. Sanding is the safer course of action.

Personally, I would like to see a photo of the bords installed and a cross view of the T&G together for a better idea of exactly what is going on for a better understanding.

Here’s an option. It sounds like you can take the boards down, so if you have a thickness planer, you could make a sled for it (1/2” or 3/4” ply, maybe even some 1x2 strips on the bottom to stiffen it). Sacrifice 1 board, rip it into 2 pieces, so you have both a single tongue piece and a groove piece. Plane these down to a centerline of tongue/groove to face thickness just shy of where you want your finished thickness to be. You could also make these two pieces from scratch as they are going to be your register jigs. Mount one of these to the sled, ensuring that your fasteners are well below the lower set point of the cutter head. Mount your T&G board into the mounted register, slide the other register jig into the T&G board and fasten to the sled, this one will be removed and reinstalled for each T&G. Set the depth of the thickness planer to your final thickness, allowing for the sled and the register jigs. This will allow each board to be planed to a uniform thickness relative to the T&G.

If these things truly are milled wrong, even if you sand the fronts, you’ll still have a problem on the backside. Obviously you won’t see that but I do tend to like to have things tight up against whatever they’re nailed to.

You can always push back the work you have scheduled for next week, the time constraint is only in your head.

Right, I'd have loved to have just bought boards and used a thickness planer and router table to make my own TnG. I don't currently have a router table, thickness planer, or table saw. And the missus was pushing for this to be done quickly. I gave her the "in theory, we can go buy X and I can then install and it will probably take Y long."

Now she can see that the TnG is not consistent and for nice results, we'd either need better TnG that would probably be more expensive or to take a lot more time for prep and installation to make sure it goes together how she wants it. Or to take more time and make it so it goes together great in the first place, but with the added time and expense of the prep.

I don't think the problem is the thickness. I think the problem is inconsistently milled tongues and grooves. I don't think they are on the same center or something. I think I got either a bad batch or part of a bad batch. They aren't all like this. I'm hoping that the majority are better. I'd originally done about 95sqft of ceiling and another 30-35sqft of a small accent wall for a half bath and both of those went together OK. I've started the walls (below the ceiling that I previously did) and a lot of what I've done has been off, but then I've run into some that seems better.

I'll try to get a good pic, but it's tough to show in a pic.

The problem stuff is coming out like this (side view)
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1643136417.jpg

It's pretty regular, at least for what I just installed. I'm hoping that I can take care of what I've got installed and the rest will be better (within a decent tolerance, which this isn't), and will require less "fitting".

That's ^^^^just defective product.

Yep, agreed.