Flattening a stump, Sinatra style

[Stash]

That's right, "I did it myyyyy wayyyyy...". 

I mentioned my  technique a few threads back, and due to a harmonic convergence, will show how I did it. I acquired a new anvil, got a few nice ash logs ( drat you, Emerald Ash Borer) and happened to have my phone in my pocket, so here goes.

First image shows the whole rig ready to fly. The router sled is sitting in the frame, the log is shimmed up so it's just under the frame, the router bit is set to take a 1/4" bite from the high spot (2nd image). The frame is riding on saw horses, but can be anything to be level to each other and higher than the log. The router bit is 3/4" straight, and the sled base is just a piece of 1/4" luan.

Next we see the first few passes. I work from right to left-  run the sled across the top, trigger off, pull it back and shift the whole sled over ~3/4", make your next pass. Next image shows the end of the first pass over the whole log. You can see it didn't take a lot of the surface. UNPLUG THE ROUTER, drop the bit down 1/4 ", plug in and take another pass. That leaves about 4" left of the rough surface. Might as well drop down 1/8" more (UNPLUG THE ROUTER)  to finish that side, flip the log over, shim up as needed. The 2nd side took 1 bite to completely flatten, but I took a few more bites at 1/4" to tweak the final height.

From this point you can do whatever you want to finish. You can rout the bottom to leave a rim of wood to sit on the floor. You can rout an inset the size of your anvil's footprint in the top, or just mount your anvil with your preferred method. Hope this helps. Looks like a happy coleslaw to me!

Steve

I tried twice to get the images in order to no avail. Hope you can figure them out. Sorry.

Steve

 

Mod note: images put in the right order.

[Anachronist58]

Imagine now, the router locked in place, and  the stump on a furniture dolly.

Had I not seen this thread, I may not ever have thought that up.

Much appreciated.

Robert Taylor

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

I just level my stumps with my chainsaw and torpedo level. After all I'm not making furniture.

[Frosty]

If you mill the center a little hollow on the bottom it won't rock.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Marc1]

2 hours ago, Frosty said:

If you mill the center a little hollow on the bottom it won't rock.

Frosty The Lucky.

True, or you can mill three channels to the center so that you get 3 raised areas and you have a stump on a tripod of sort. Never rocks. 

[Smoggy]

2 hours ago, Marc1 said:

True, or you can mill three channels to the center so that you get 3 raised areas and you have a stump on a tripod of sort. Never rocks. 

That's ecxactly what I did but i just used a wood chisel, then turned it over and without bothering to square the top up recessed to fit the anvil.

[gote]

Thank you for the pics. The method looks so attractive that even if my stumps are good, I have put it on my list of things to make for the next stump or whatever needs levelling/planing. A plane is a good tool but not really across grain.

[Jackdawg]

one extra hint there I'll take straight from the photo's - do it outside!