Planeing wood - finding nails before it hits the blade.

784 Views 24 Replies 13 Participants Last post by Drachenfire, 4 mo ago

Frank Lavorngia

Discussion Starter · 4 mo ago

I've got three Black Walnut boards. One with live edges.
I seen a nail in one. How can I find out if their are any more ?
I need to run them through a planer.

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21 - 25 of 25 Posts

lenaitch

· #21 · 4 mo ago

Jar944_2 said:
Most commercial shops won't run suspect or reclaimed wood, or anything from "yard trees." The ones who do work with that type of material will metal detect for hidden items and assume knives will eventually be nicked in the process.

I don't own a planer so when I was building my project I went to a custom woodwork shop and they wouldn't touch it. I found a lumber yard that was the original planing mill in town and still had the old equipment, who were willing to do it, if I scanned it first. The end product revealed a few nicks in the blades but they didn't charge me much and it sanded down.

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dtm3

· #22 · 4 mo ago

Drachenfire said:
Unbeknownst to some people, computer hard drives have a powerful magnet inside. Working in IT I have acquired a few of these magnets from dead hard drives which I use to locate nails in boards. I also screwed a number of them onto a board, attached a handle and used it as a crude metal detector to find dropped screws in my yard after building my deck.

NOTE: These magnets are only found in hard disk drives (HDD), not in solid state drives (SSD).

Of course you could purchase some rare earth magnets from a craft or hobby store or online.

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