Photo 1- Resaw thick stock into thinner pieces at the table saw by making a progression of cuts. First make cuts at about an inch high as shown.

Thin stock is made on the table saw by double ripping the stock on edge, as in photos 1 and 2. The maximum width of stock you can achieve equals twice the maximum height of your blade above the table, which on most 10" saws is about 2-3/4", so 5-1/2" is about the most. This kind of ripping is very demanding of your saw blade if you try to cut the full 2-3/4" in one pass, which I don't recommend. First set the blade at 1" high and double rip the stock as in photo 1, always putting the same face against the fence, of course. Then raise the blade to 2", rip again, and then set it at full height for the final pass (photo 2). Be sure your fingers are out of the way on all these passes and use a push stick as shown.

Photo 2- Raise the blade and make more cuts without moving the fence. When the thin part will be cut free, push it through with a push stick as shown.

The first thing you'll notice when doing this kind of cut is that if your stock is not flat, and does not ride flush against the table saw fence, the blade will tend to burn inside the cut. This is because the wood is being turned slightly against the side of the blade during the cut. You want to minimize this kind of action because it is bad for the blade to heat it this way, it is bad for the wood to burn it, but mostly because if this action is severe enough the blade can bind or worse it could grab and throw the stock. Doing the cut in three passes will help, but this is treating the symptom and not the cause, which is twisted stock. Try to pick the straightest stock you can. Cut longer pieces into shorter sections, but don't work with pieces less than 18" long. Using a jointer to flatten the face of the stock is the best solution to twisted wood. If you don't have a jointer you could flatten the stock the traditional way with hand planes- an arduous but venerable task. A belt sander with very coarse grit could be used to do this, but this will only work well to remove severe high spots, it won’t work well to make boards accurately flat.

Once you have stock that is straight to your satisfaction, look at it carefully and if the piece is still not perfectly straight place the outside of the curve against the fence, as in drawing 1A. If you place the inside against the fence, as in drawing 1B, you can cause severe binding as the tail end of the piece comes in contact with the fence. This is potentially very dangerous and should be guarded against.

Drawing 1- This drawing is greatly exaggerated for the sake of clarity, you should not cut pieces on the table saw that are as badly distorted as those shown. See text. 'A' shows how you should run slightly bowed stock in the table saw, with the outside of the curve against the fence. 'B' shows what not to do, because if the inside of the curve is to the fence severe binding against the blade can result.

How far should you set the fence from the blade? If your stock is very straight and the ripping cuts go easily, you can place it very close to the thickness you want to achieve with only a little bit extra for sanding or planing. But if the stock is not perfectly straight there will be some variation in thickness, so it is best to rip it over thickness by about 1/16" or so, and then sand or plane to thickness later.

A word of caution. We are talking here about running stock that is not perfectly straight through the table saw with a deep cut, and as I've said this is potentially dangerous. The amount of danger is a matter of degree- slightly twisted stock will not present much problem but severely twisted stock will. If your stock is out of flat more than 1/8" over two feet of length, either find a way to flatten it or don't use it.

Using a thin kerf blade will be a big help on a job like this, for two reasons. First, because it moves less wood it is easier to push the piece through the cut, and secondly because the kerf is less wide, less wood is wasted in the cut and you can get more pieces from your stock. One disadvantage to thin kerf blades is that they can wobble a bit in the cut, making a rougher cut than with a regular blade, but the pieces will need to be sanded anyway so this is not a serious problem. It is more important with a thin blade to take the cuts in multiple passes as described above, because if you try to take a full 2-3/4" cut the blade could seriously distort under the great load. Thin blades are more likely to distort with heat buildup than thicker blades. Thin kerf blades come in many different diameters like other blades; remember that you want the largest diameter that will fit on your saw in order to get the maximum height of cut.

Whether or not you use a thin blade, it is still possible to get several thin pieces from one thick piece, depending on the dimensions. And so you may be merrily cutting along on a thick piece, gradually moving the blade up and down as you progressively peel off thin pieces, and then you find that as you start to cut the third or fourth piece that now the blade is binding where it wasn't before- and sure enough looking at the now thinner piece you see that it is no longer straight. Why is this? As wood is removed from the original piece, tensions in the wood are released causing the wood to move. On some pieces you won't see this at all, others a fair amount and on some it will be extreme. Keep an eye on the stock as you work it and straighten or eliminate those that move a lot.

Once you have your thin pieces roughed out, they need to be brought to their final thickness, and the obvious choice for this is to use a planer, if you have one, or visit your local cabinet shop and use their planer or wide belt sander. Or you can belt sand the pieces with a hand belt sander to approximate thickness, though this is not a reliable means of getting a consistent thickness. Using hand planes to thickness the stock gives you more control, as well as sore muscles, but all kidding aside if you have a penchant for planes this is where you can really make use of your skill.

Photo 3- Winding sticks on a board that is almost flat. Note that the sticks are very close to being parallel to each other.

Here is a trick the old timers used to check for flatness when planing the face of a board. Take two straight sticks (called ‘winding sticks’), each about two feet long, and place one on each end of the board you are planing, as in photos 3+4. Then sight down the board such that both the sticks are close to your line of sight, and you will quickly see whether or not the two sticks are parallel to each other, and if not which corners to joint, plane or belt sand down. The key with a procedure like this is to check frequently and remove only a little at a time, so you don't go beyond your intended goal.

Photo 4- Winding sticks on a board that is quite twisted. This exaggerated example shows how the long winding sticks make it easy to detect twisted stock.