Joiner or Planer – I always thought a joiner was used to true up edges so you can glue up tabletops and such without gaps. I know that is one use, but after reading where if they could have do overs, some folks would buy an 8″versus a 6″, I realized they want to lay boards face down on the table. And there are a lot of projects requiring up to 8″ wide boards. I always thought (wait for it….there it is…my ignorance) that a planer was used to make the faces parallel and the joiner and tablesaw made the edges parallel. I watched a video on FWW called Squaring up Rough Lumber with Gary Rogowski (I like his stuff) and now I have a better idea, but it seems a joiner is just a planer, only more narrow. Can you do anything on a joiner that you can on a planer, just not with boards wider than the joiner table? How off track am I here?
Thanks in advance for your enlightenment!!!
Replies
The jointer is designed to produce perfectly flat surfaces. It removes any cup, twist, etc. The planer makes two surfaces parallel. When you feed a board into the planer, the feed rollers press the board against the bed. They have enough downward force to temporarily flatten stock, but as soon as the board passes through the planer, it pops back to its original shape. That's why you use the jointer first.
If you really want, you can get away without a jointer by making a sled for your planer to flatten stock. It's basically a flat board of plywood or mdf etc onto which you place your board to be flattened. Then you add shims under the board so that the feed rollers won't remove the warp. It's a good idea to use double-stick tape, hot glue, or cleats so that everything stays in place as it is fed through the machine. Once you have the top surface flat, remove it from the sled and flatten the other face.
Edges of boards can be jointed on the tablesaw as long as the boards aren't thicker than the tablesaw's blade can be raised.
I hope that made sense. It's late and I'm tired.
Chris @ www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
I saw a video of a guy using a sled to plane flat one side of a long, wide board (wider than 8"). A nice setup, when you don't have a 16" joiner laying around. I think this is what got me confused at first. Any smaller board could be shimmed and placed on a sled and run throuh a planer to flatten a face. But the accuracy is probably a little off. I see what you mean when you say the roller will press the board down but it will spring back to its original shape after exiting the planer. So the planer is just following the pressed down curves, so to speak. You could start out with a warped 1" thick board and affter a few passes, end with a 1/2" thick, warped board.
Thanks for staying up to make a reply.
I get this question all of the time on my site and finally enlisted several of my regular viewers to help me keep track of usage. The jointer won out big time though everyone knows we really need both the jointer and planer in the shop to do it right. I wrote a story on the subject with more of the reasons for the jointer-first conclusion. See the link below.
http://www.newwoodworker.com/jntrorplnrfrst.html
Tom Hintz
Because there is always more to learn!
Thanks Tom. Who knew there are others with a similar question ;>)
It's also nice to find your site. The article is great info. I noticed it was posted on 8-8-08, a very lucky day...for me!
That story was posted 8-8-08 because seeing this thread reminded me that I had written it a month or so ago, made the page and then forgot to load it up to the site.....Tom Hintz
Because there is always more to learn!
your welcome (ggg)
Tom,
I read your article and thought that it was very good at describing how each tool is used and what it does. However, I disagree with your final decision of a jointer being the first of the two to acquire. It is easy to flatten a face with a hand plane (although slower than a jointer). However, it takes much more practice and time to get the other face parallel and flat. It is easy to get one straight edge with a hand plane and rip the other side parallel with the table saw. Or use the table saw for both edges. I surfaced lumber for a few years by hand plane alone, then acquired a thickness planer, then 1-1/2 years later, a jointer. That, I think, is a more sensible sequence.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Chris
For what it's worth, I agree with you that a planer would be more practical as a first tool purchase than a jointer. However, in the long run, I wouldn't want to be without either, unless I was just hacking up a board or two.
Faced with flattening and surfacing several thousand board feet of hardwood lumber each year, I'd prefer not to go without either.
Jeff
Jeff,
I agree with you 100%.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
" I always thought (wait for it....there it is...my ignorance) that a planer was used to make the faces parallel and the joiner and tablesaw made the edges parallel"
-----The planer does make faces parallel-that is what it is for.
-----The jointer or surfacer flattens faces and edges and straightens them- it is not designed to make faces or edges parallel , but if you are proficient and have a decent machine you can fairly accurately bring a board to consistent thickness with one.
The jointer is not a planer or thicknesser because it has no means to ensure that the two faces of a board are machined parallel or to ensure that a board is machined to a consistent thickness.That is why this machine (your planer)is called a THICKNESSER in other countries.
A planer or thicknesser works best if one face has been SURFACED on the surfacer (jointer to you) first, although if a rough sawn board is straight and quite smooth one can get away with not surfacing first- bad practice and will result in problems down the line.
So it follows that one needs both machines if one is to prepare rough sawn stock quickly by machine.
Ideally one should have a surfacer of sufficient width to surface reasonably wide boards-something like 12 inches and up and obviously the planer to match i.e at least 12 inch width.
"but it seems a joiner is just a planer, only more narrow". ---- I think you have that wrong, since a jointer is not a planer, having no auto feed and means to regulate thickness and face parallelism....It would be more accurate to say that a jointer is often a narrow long bed version of a surfacer......
So to clean up a rough sawn board one first surfaces (or joints) one edge and face to be straight - the edge is supposed to be square to the face. Then the board is thicknessed by use of your planer, then the remaining edge is removed by tablesaw or other means. The tablesaw is convenient for ensuring that the edges are parallel apart from cutting to width.Then that last edge is cleaned on the jointer/surfacer as needed.Philip Marcou
Edited 8/11/2008 6:51 am by philip
Mr Out,
I never have grasped why a jointer and a planer are sold as two separate machines in the US. Perhaps its marketing?
When one has a rough plank that may have cup, wind and bend in along both axes then the sequence must go as follows:
0) Cut off excess waney edge and resaw the plank as required on the bandsaw or with a portable circular saw, to get roughly rectangular planks.
1) Flatten one face on the "jointer". This removes any cup, wind or bend on that face. Step 2 necessarily uses this flat face as its reference. If you joint the edge (step 2) using a cupped, winded or bent plank-face agin the fence, you will almost certainly end up transferring some of those attributes to the jointed edge.
2) Flatten one edge and make it 90 degrees to the flat face, by running the flat face agin the "jointer" fence, which is set at 90 degrees to the "jointer" table. You now have a reference face, and reference edge at 90 degrees, ready to be used to machine the opposing face/edge in steps 3 and 4.
3) Make the other (non-flat) face both flat and parallel to the first (flattened) face by running it through the "planer", flattened face down. You now have an evenly thick, flattened-both-sides, straight plank. If you try to do this step before doing step 1, you will merely transfer the bend or wind from the first face to the second - an evenly thick banana or corkscrew.
4) Run the plank with the finished edge from step 2 down on the "planer" table to make the oposite edge flat, parallel to the first edge and at 90 degrees to both faces.
4a) Alternatively, run the plank through the TS with the jointed edge from step 2 agin the TS fence, to get the 2nd edge straight, parallel to the first edge and at 90 degrees to the faces.
5) Refine the edges with a handplane, sander, TS or your preferred method to take out any ripples from the jointing process. If your machines have sharp blades, this step should reduce the dimensions by only a very few thou - you are only making the now flat surfaces truly smooth.
***
You need a "jointer" that has enough capacity to flatten the face of your widest-used boards. Mine is 10" - a wider plank is unusual but there are many between 6 and 9 inches. The "planer" needs the same width capacity and also a height capacity to take those 10 inchers edge-up when necessary.
This being so, why not purchase a European-style machine which combines the "jointer" (called "planer" in Europe) with the "planer" (called "thicknesser" in Europe). The capacities for all the above operations are thereby matched - 10" being the smallest in most machines and going up to 16" in the more expensive items. You are not then limited to an often inadequate 4-6" capacity for step 1.
You buy and store only one machine - a planer-thicknesser (as they are called here). The model I use is currently selling at £800 new in Britain - which (considering our high sales tax and the rip-off Britain syndrome) might well cost around $1200 in the US.
Lataxe
I (heart) my old 10" Inca jointer/planer (planer/thicknesser). One less footprint in my small shop.
Those Inca combo machines are nice if it's all you can fit in your shop, but the very short infeed and outfeed tables make it less desireable for flatten or edging longer boards. That, in my opinion, is a reasonable drawback to consider when purchasing machines.
My jointer, a 12" HD Northfield, is at the other end of the extreme, having an overall length of 96".
Like you said, though. If it's all that will fit in a tight shop, then it's certainly better and faster then flattening 200 bf by hand.
Jeff
" . . . but the very short infeed and outfeed tables make it less desireable for flatten or edging longer boards."My Inca came with an extension bed (about 7') that slips through the planer section, and is then raised to the height of the infeed and outfeed tables. Certainly not as desirable as an original long, cast bed, but a decent compromise, I thought.
Ahhhh!! I haven't seen the extension bed for the Inca. The person I know who has one of those combo setups from Inca has very short infeed and outfeed tables. He actually has a 12" Crescent for flattening long boards.
Jeff
The Inca extension bed adds to both infeed and outfeed, giving an overall length of about 6 feet. But, it's a little fiddly to set up, so it wouldn't be practical for any sort of production setup. On the other hand, in a production environment, ample space is usually a given, so separate machines are quicker and more practical. Ah, to have an 18" jointer with 14' infeed and outfeed tables (28' overall) for those long boards. ;-)And, yes, the Inca uses the same knives for both operations, so that's another downside for a production situation. I want one of Mel's futuristic CNC machines that analyzes the board for warp in all directions, and then does the optimal operations for maximized yield. ;-)
Lataxe-Most people tend to think what they are used to is the right way to do anything. You make a good case for the two-function jointer-planer, and I can't fault its positive aspects. But there are some negatives for some people who prefer two separate machines: - It can be annoying and time consuming to switch between the two functions in the single machine. - The length of the infeed table for the jointer (I'll use US terminology) is usually short compared to that of a separate machine. Longer is usually better for achieving accurately straight and even surfaces on long boards. - There are times when having the planer capacity much wider than the jointer is useful. Planing glued-up panels for example. - It is only at the high end of cost and quality (Felder and the like) that multifunction machines are available in the US. Grizzly may be changing that, but at the moment a pretty good separate jointer and planer is cheaper here than a combination machine.Don
Don,
Another reason for separates might be that if a problem(s) arrises with a combo it might cripple both machines. Not that familiar with combo jointer/planers but I would assume they both use the same blades? Blades dull = neither machine available?
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Lataxe,
To me, the reason to have two machines instead of one is the same reasoning between individual machines versus a combination machine. Single-function tools take less time to set-up. In my shop, boards seem to be about 8" or less (I have an 8" jointer and 13" thickness planer) or massive slabs 15"-40" wide.
PS: Step 0. Ha. Just don't go into the negatives.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
My father in law calls his grizzley jointer a 'surfacer'; while he is not wrong, that line of thinking leaves a lot of unused potential in the tool. While both tools cut with a planing action, the big difference is in what they reference in making the cut. The thickness planer referecences a thickness (and is relatively blind to making a board straight along its length, and even if it weren't it could only handle small bows and would stall out on large ones--basically, it's unsafe and only partially effective as a jointer), a certain distance away from the stock table. The jointer references a line, because precisely aligned and lengthy tables are coplanar with the cutting edge. The jointer is completely blind to stock thickness so it is easy to make a perfectly strait and surfaced wedge when and if you think it is a thicknesser. Which face of the board you are running (edge or wider 'face')does not change the purpose of the tool. You can thickness an edge just as you can joint a face. I'm no expert at face jointing, and I and others get along without doing a whole lot of it, but that does not make it any less fundamental. Whenever I don't face joint before planing I accept that I am using a somewhat imperfect board, and yes a wider jointer is on the list. Just some information.
Brian
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