This article and video describe making a jig to use a planer as a jointer for wide boards. Sounds interesting for those of us who can’t afford the planer of our dreams.
http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesPDF.aspx?id=24118
Replies
Yep, a sled for the uneven stock. I used this method with some 12" wide poplar last year, worked well. An alternative approach is to set up a router on a frame and use a large planing bit with it. Peter Loh show how in this thread.
Thanks! Always good to find another way. Funny thing is I'm making a router guide to make a log into a round pole. Hadn't thought of the obvious variation. Like the site too. Night.
H,
The magazine just dropped through my letterbox this morning (it has to swim the Atlantic). I confess to issuing a snort of incredulity when I saw the article with all that fussin' and makin' of a dirty great shim just to get the plank flat. Why not buy a proper planer-thicknesser instead?
http://forums.taunton.com/n/mb/at.asp?webtag=fw-knots&guid=31163F3D-0D63-41F7-AC59-F707054C36E7&frames=no
Lataxe, always agog at primitive US WW machines and the incredible efforts required to make them do the job.
PS Yes, a bad case of wholier-than-thou. Me plank-flattener has all the necessary parts and no gaping holes in its functionality. :-)
I'm confused. Isn't that a jointer. Buying one that can handle 12"+ boards gets a bit expensive.
a bad case of wholier-than-thou..
I'd say so but I for one loved your presentation all the same!
I have a whole bunch of primitive US WW machines that seem to work. At least I get the job done sometime and with all my fingers anyway...
Love then blue machines whatever they are?
Euro or US machines.. Using either one I am sure I would need help to lift them slabs up onto the machines at my age!
;>)
Now THAT'S the way to handle lumber slabs!Rich
Showoff.
;-)forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Don't know 'bout holier-than-thou, but I'll give you richer-than-moi.
H,
That planer-thicknesser of mine costs £700 ($1000?) before tax at the moment and is 3HP with 10 inch planing & thicknessing capacities. Also the latest model has cast iron tables for planing & thicknessing, which is probably an improvement over my steel tables. There are many such machines for sale in Europe, some as cheap as £400 ands ome up in the couple of thousand bracket.
What would you pay for a seperate jointer and planer in the US of A sporting similar power and capacity? Somewhat more I think, especially for the jointer.
The cost-saving of having a combined machine of 10 or 12 inch capacity for all operations means that most amateurs prefer a planer-thickneser something like mine. It has a small footprint. It uses one motor for all operations. Changing configuration from planing/jointing to thicknessing takes about 90 seconds.
It seems that such machines (around the $1000 price point) are just not available in the US. I have never understood why this is so. Nor why your jointers (what we call planers) are typically 6 inches wide whilst planers (what we call thicknessers) are 13 inches wide. Do the planks expand after they have their first face planed? No.
Lataxe, a poor pensioner in fact.
Lataxe,
I could tell you how to surface boards up to 12" wide on a 6" jointer, but as it involves removing the safety guard, you would be horrified, and the knots safety police would ban me forever.
Ray
Ray,
I just flattened a 18" wide slab of walnut exactly as I believe you mentioned yesterday with my 12" jointer. I've done it several times, with very good results. A little clean up with the hand planes, and ready for joinery.
You are right, though. The safety police won't have any of it!
Jeff
Jeff,
Shhh! They're giving you the hairy eyeball right now.
Ray
Lataxe,
I'll buy one. When can you deliver? Maybe we should look into the import/export business... just to give the economy a kick in the can, doncha know. Always wanted to see your side of the world.Your pics of turning a log into a beam had me droolin'.Top o the mornin to ye,
Pete
Interesting comments Lataxe.
You see after we shot all the buffalo, we ended up with all of this wasted dirt. So we build silly big houses and silly big workshops. Got to fill those shops with iron!
I think the only company that has had any success in NA with combination machines is Shop Smith.
I have an 8" jointer which I got a got off the show floor for CAD$800.00 and then bought a Rigid portable bench top style thicknesser for around CAD$350.00 (this one is normally around CAD$500.00). Both of those price exclude the taxation assessed by Her Majesty's colonial administration.
The North American jointer is a reasonably robust casting and motor built to handle half a board (6-8"). Induction motor, belt drive. There are larger but not readily available to the average hobbyist.
The portable bench top style planer (thicknesser) on the other hand is designed to handle a whole board (12-13") and is powered by a suped up universal motor that shakes, moans and groans when hit with a 10" piece of anything. A proper floor model thicknesser with an proper induction motor would easily be double the price.
I did Google planer-thicknesser and came up with mostly UK based distributors. The selling price on most of the models I looked at were OK, but shipping to Canada and getting the electrical approvals would be cost prohibitive. It would be great if there were a distributor in NA who might be bringing in container quantities. There are some models out there from Austria, Germany or Italy but they do not look as compact as yours does. FWW did comparison of a few model in #190 Mar/Apr 2007. The were in the 500+ lb weight class and Costs were US$2500 - 4400.What is your brand & model and would you buy it again?Don
Edited 2/21/2009 12:56 am by Don01
Don,
The US market in WW machines is indeed a strange old-fashioned place. And yet on the handtool front the US is streets ahead of Europe, where (as far as I know) planes are still all bevel-down, chipbreaker things of (at best) indifferent quality and even costly handsaws still need to be fettled before they will stop wandering and cutting a geet wide kerf.
But I digress.
That P/T of mine is made in Germany -Scheppach is the brandname. I also have one of their midrange 3HP 10" TS with sliding table (£1600 inc tax) and a large 3HP BS of 12 inch resaw capacity (£1500 inc tax). Also a-one of their suckers, which is piped to all these machines via blast-gates (£390 with a big concertina filter, £295 with just a cloth bag filter).
I've had the P/T for 10 years and it's had probably hundreds of thousands of feet go through it, 95% hardwoods, from 1 - 9.9" wide. The only maintanace required in all that time has been: a new capacitor (just last year); quite a few (HSS) blade resharpens; regular grease of the drive chain/gearing; reflatten the planer table (one corner dropped a millimetre when I dropped a huge plank on it some years ago).
The construction is of thick steel plate, including the tables, although it's weakest feature is an aluminium fence. Despite the lack of cast iron it weighs over 100kg/220llbs. It does a very good job, especially of thicknessing, where the rubber feed rollers and high revolutions of the cutter head leave a ripple-free finish.
I have been thinking of getting another - exactly the same except it has cast iron beds now (weighs more as well, therefore) and an improved fence. I haven't bothered as the current one still does everything I want, including those geet big planks of oak and similar.
If there was a version with one of those spiral / TCT teeth cutters, I would definitely get that. I do sometimes think about the 12" version but it costs twice as much and I rarely have a 12 inch plank.
Have a look at typical European WW machines here. Lust!
http://nmatools.co.uk/
Lataxe
What is the brand of yellow and blue bandsaw ??
Q
Q,
That blue & yellow BS is also Scheppach, still made in Germany to the fine engineering traditions they have there.
Scheppach also make the same BS, TS and PT machines as the blue & yellow versions in a very beefed up and somewhat enhanced fashion, brandname IXUS (two-tone grey, like a battleship). These are meant for continuous use in a commercial environment whereas the blue & yellow versions are for "trade & hobbyist use" - in other words, same functions, capacities and accuracy but not 7 hours a day, 5 days a week.
As far as I know, Scheppach and similar European manufacturers of WW machines don't export to the US - I never really understand why as there must be a large market for such good quality hobbyist machines there. No US manufacturer (domestic or far-east-based) seems to offer anything like them. Maybe Powermatic is the closest; but they seem relatively expensive, old-fashioned and somewhat over-engineered for a hobbyist.
Lataxe
Lataxe,Felder and Minimax have sales offices in the U.S. Laguna represents several high-end European manufacturers. The machines are here, but awareness is low and there is nothing in the price range of your machines.Rich
Thx. I've seen these yellow & blue machines in a few articles and been wondering about them. Powermatic PM1800 looks real good in terms of features, design and quality. Like they say, it's the last bandsaw you'll ever need. I agree that it's rather pricey. Some of the European design is rubbing off on US machine, even the Rigid contractor saw has a riving knive . (Hmm, I could have bought one, safe, and save big bucks...)
Q
Q,
Yes, an alternative to the US importing those blue & yellow style WW machines from Europe is for US manufacturers to pull their over-conservative fingers out of their fundaments and update some of their own machines. As you say, they seem to have got the riving knife principle (at last) so why not sliding crosscut tables on tablesaws and planer-thicknessers of good capacity/power at a realistic price point?
It's been remarked upon many times before in this forum - North American WW industry seems to have a schizophrenic attitude: some really fine innovations (sawstop, quality handtools) right alongside an ostrich-like inability to progress ancient designs like the unisaw, not to mention the failure to understand that a "jointer" is primarily a planer and a "planer" is in fact meant to make already planed-flat planks evenly thick.
Lataxe, who wishes Scheppach would put a sawstop brake on their TS.
habilis
I've built this jig/device, and my results are somewhat mixed. When it works well, it works well. That said, with my planer, I have to take VERY light cuts or the rollers will pull the board off the jig. I've thought about modifying it--mount some kind of stop at the front to keep the board from pulling off the jig. A 5' jig and board are not easily maneuvered in the shop either. On the video that accompanies the article, the author uses roller stands on both infeed and outfeed sides, plus a roller mounted to the side of his planer stand. Flattening one side of the board with a well tuned jointer plane may be easier. Lataxe's solution is the best for those with the space and money. Tom
Edited 2/21/2009 6:58 pm by ctsjr82
Space & money are my limitations, but I'm convincing my wife that good tools save time. We fix up an old house, she goes and finds a bigger one and she likes the things I make for fun, the craft and the challenge.
That's what it's about. I think with the board stop on the front end, the jig will be very useful, just not very easy to maneuver. I'm also going to get a Hock cap iron for my #7 and give that a go too. Wide boards in furniture is becoming a passion! Tom"Notice that at no time do my fingers leave my hand"
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