Most people prep their boards this way.

1. Joint one face

2. Joint one edge.

3. Plane to desired thickness.

4. Rip to Width.

 

Here is my method.

1. Joint one face

2. Mark the Jointed face so that the grain is orientated to way I need it for my project and mark in chalk my board width.

3. Band saw the chalk lines.

4. Joint once edge.

5. Plane to desired thickness

6. Rip to width.

 

You do waste more wood but you get much better looking projects.

How do you do board prep?

Here's mine:

1.  design the Thing to fit what I can buy

2.  buy the straightest I can find

3.  live with it

 

In the end, it's all compost.

Most of my wood is 8/4 rough and live edged so, if I don't want the live edge, the first step is to straighten one edge with the Skil saw and my shop made track. That will leave a smooth edge to rip on the TS. Then, it goes through the planer...sled, if necessary...to get one flat face.  Then, to the BS, for resaw if necessary... It usually is. Then back to the planer for final thickness. 

I haven't used a jointer in years. 

12 hours ago, PeteM said:

Here's mine:

1.  design the Thing to fit what I can buy

2.  buy the straightest I can find

3.  live with it

I am going to go with this is my approach as well....

I most be odd I find the wood first then figure out what I can do with it. Most be from art school it was always find x item and make something from it. Not sure if that makes sense but it’s how I learned to design and be creative. 

 

 Unless it’s for someone else then I joint 1 edge, fix broken whatever, plane to thickness or rip other edge. Just depends on how flat it is or if it’s a panel. Then plane some more, fix whatever I broke, assembly, de assembly, fix whats messed up, last but not least, somewhere in there something gets made and pretty stuff goes on top. 

All of my lumber is rough cut so it’s really hard to pick the best grain first. 

 

I rough cut to length

rough cut the width

flatten on side on the jointer

run the through the planer to flatten the other side and take to close thickness 

straighten the edges on the table saw and glue up. 

Run the panels through the dual drum sander for final thickness 

hand sand as necessary. 

Finish the assembly.