I have been an on again/off again woodworker for about 20 year. Until last year almost all of my work was done with hand tools – perhaps slow but satisfying work. This past year I was given a used table saw which has really speeded up some operations and I’m now considering getting a thicknesser and a jointer. I would like to get some opinions on the merits of a jointer vs. hand plane.
Presently I own four hand planes – the largest being an old beech fore plane (14″ about 2″) and have use this to flatten joint and thickness boards. It has no adjusting mechanism, is missing a chip breaker and tends to get jammed up with shavings. So I’m wondering if it would be better to put it to rest and get a 6″ jointer of a better hand plane.
One question I have about jointers is why does the bed have to be so long? The longest had planes only tend to be about 24″. Are jointers therefore so much more accurate. I haven’t used a jointer since my high school days and my memories of the machine are that it is a rather stressful machine to use. Can a hand plane do surfacing and jointing to the same degree of accuracy as a jointer given a moderate skill level.
This lead to the question about hand planes. Do I need the longest plane possible? Do I really need more than one hand plane for sufacing/jointing operations. Lee Valley claims their 5 1/2 is suitable for jointing but it is only 12″. Can this be true?
Replies
If you are joining boards for long table tops I think the length of a joiner bed becomes important. I have used a 24" beech wood German Ulmia for 20 years with good success on joints up to about 36". If you have never experienced a Lie-Neilson plane, I would highly recommend you splurge for one. They cost an arm and a leg, but more than most things we buy, they are a great deal because they work incredibly well. If I didn't already have four of their planes and a Makita joiner/planer, I would be lusting after their 24" joiner plane.
Hans
JHMarkham,
This questions always opens a can worms, with many differing opinions, and little middle ground. For myself, I have little use for a jointer, and can't see myself ever owning one. In my mind the main draw back to a jointer is their limited capacity, which is typically 6-8 wide, For my kind of work this is quite narrow. Of course larger machines are available, but at high cost and they are huge. I believe the reason jointers are so long is that you need to have a infeed and outfeed table of sufficient length to overcome the cantilever effect of pushing long lumber over the tool.
The surface planer on the other hand is an excellent tool, and ranks at the top of my nearly indispensable power tool list ( all power tools could be dispensed with). While it is quite easy to rapidly flatten a face of a board, planing one to thickness is boring , physical work. I do this for boards beyond the capacity of my planer, but I don't like it.
I have a Clark and Williams 30"jointer, that works great at flattening boards both on the face and edge jointing, but this is overkill. I have a Stanley jointer, and I use this for most work, but I believe a fore plane would work just as well. Unless you work with short lumber, I consider the fore plan to be the shortest practical plane for edge jointing.
I'd certainly opt for a good hand plane over a jointer, you'll end up with a much more useful tool.
Rob Millard
One of the reasons teh jointers are so long is because you move the wood over a stationary cutter. If you are jointing some 8/4 maple for a table top say, you need the length to support the weight of the wood on the outfeed.
Adam
My site: http://home.cogeco.ca/~akropinski
I'm about half way through hand planing the stock I need for my latest project... least... I hope I'm half way... checking too frequently gets to be depressing. I'm working mainly with 4 planes; in the absence of a scrub plane, I'm using a Stanley#5 / L-N#62 to do the initial shaping of the boards, knocking off the worst of the high spots before taking out the saw marks. To joint the boards I'm using a L-N#7... finishing them with a L-N#4 1/2 with the high angle frog when necessary (the bulk of the stock is highly figured elm, remainder is Scots oak).
There's a bunch of reasons why I'm doing this by hand... but the main ones are versatility, tooling cost, and lack of shop space. My hand planes don't limit me to working with a set width of board (max width of the jointer); The cost of a jointer wide enough to work boards as wide as I'm using is way beyond my budget, and my small shop is at it's limit re the machinery I can squeeze in there and still work.
There are a couple of other advantages... aside from getting a finish on the board that any rotary planer just can't hope to match....namely cost of running the tools.... in my case, nothing more than a 7 watt high efficiency bulb... and the cardio vascular work out that the doc says is VERY good for me....
Only disadvantages I can see are the time involved... no way can my arms compete with a machine for speed... and crawling outa the shop looking like something the cat dragged in...
every silver lining has a cloud....
Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
The tool (power or hand) must be long enough to "ride out" the highs and lows on a piece of stock when jointing. The longer the bed, the greater its' ability to level a surface. Of course, the upper limit of of this is when the bed is twice the length of the stock.
I have used a 22" beech-body jointer for many years and can accuratley joint boards up to 8'; making high quality joints. I am currently building a home (now trimming it out) and don't have the time to hadn joint everything. Much of it was done with an old Delta 6" x 32". I had trouble with stock over 5' long. I now use a Grizzly 0500 that is 75" long. Much better on long stock.
If you are doing occasional work and like hand tools, I heartily recommend you go down that road. I would opt for a high quality cast iron jointer in excess of 20" long. A properly tuned hadn plane will leave a top quality surface in its' wake. However, keeping that edge square can be a challenge. When gluing two boards together, certainly fold the boards book-style so that any error will cancel. Imagine a book laying face-down on the table. Grab it by the binding and lift up so the book closes. Now run the jointer down along the binding as if jointing. If the jointer was tipped 2 or 3 degrees it would not matter. One board got cut 3 degrees one way, the other board got cut 3 degrees in the opposite direction. When you lay the boards back out flat, the two angles will cancel each other out.
Even with my 75" jointer, I still pull out the hand planes when doing small or very large work. Just the other day I had to clean up several poplar panels I had glued up. The jack plane did a great job.
JHM,
I really don't want to get into the hand versus power tool debate, but I will point out that even if you get a power jointer and a power planer you should also get--at the very least--a jointer plane and smoothing plane.
The edge left by a power jointer is not ideal for gluing up panels. The knives' circular motion means that the tool leaves a series of scallops, and compressed fibers where the knives didn't cut. Edges right off the electron murderer make joints that are not as strong and durable as an edge that's been made with a hand plane. Of course you don't need to do all the jointing by hand; taking a couple swipes with a hand plane will eliminate these faults. Obviously, this means you will still need a good jointer plane, one that's at least 22" long.
The same is true for surface planers. Like the electric edge jointer, they also leave a surface of small scallops and compressed fibers. Again, you don't need to do all the flattening and surfacing with a hand plane; all that's needed is taking a couple swipes with a sharp, good quality smoother.
Another reason to use a smoother is that the surface left by a hand plane is superior to the surface left by power tools and/or sanding. Cutting the fibers cleanly leaves a glassy-smooth surface that takes stain and finishes more evenly. The finished surface has much greater depth and clarity than anything made with sand paper or electric tools.
A jointer plane is also useful for flattening panels. Its length means it slices off only the high spots until the panel is flattened. The surface can then be readied for finishing with a smoother.
Using hand tools that aren't of sufficient quality--or aren't properly tuned up--can be so frustratingly awful this dismal experience can be enough to make even Saint Roy of Underhill looking for electric powered assistants. But using hand tools that are sharp, and properly set up, is a great joy and a delight in feeling your hands molding the wood into something beautiful.
I have to say that it sounds to me like the hand tools you are using aren't exactly the best. I would say not to give up on hand tools before you have a chance to use good ones.
In short (me? short? hah!) for the tools you mentioned it's not really an either/or choice. You can do all the work with nothing but hand tools. But if you decide you want to speed up your productions a bit, or not use so much of your own energy, power tools will accomplish these things. However, you will still need good quality hand planes to do the best possible work.
Alan
If you've been building with hand tools for 20 years, you probably got a good idea of the pros and cons of handplanes. Jointers are noisy and spew unhealthy, obnoxious sawdust all over. As you know, you must pass the wood over the tool which means you must have enough space for twice the length of the board. And as already mentioned, they don't leave a good glue joint. So (the way I see it anyhow) you will pay a lot of money to make you go deaf, take up a huge amount of space, and give you lung problems, all the while just speeding up how fast you ruin that $50 board!
I like to "spring" my joints which (although a jointer plane is nice) can be shot with a much smaller plane ( of coarse this depends on the length). Generally I clamp 2 adjoining boards back to back and shoot it staight as possible and then take 1 or 2 shaves in the middle (about 2-4 inches from each end), this leaves about a 1/32" gap in the middle which closes up when clamped causing some kind of benefit( I'm not sure what, but its a very old tactic that I've had great luck with over the years).
Besides, If you get that table saw tuned up and make carefull cuts there should'nt be much planing anyway.
izac,
This kind of discussion always results in an almost religious fervor, with polarizing opinions growing more and more strident.
It's fine to have opinions and one's own style of work, but generating or repeating misinformation benefits no one.
Wood working is a dust-generating activity. But jointers don't "spew unhealthy, obnoxious sawdust all over." They generate chips and fluffy shavings that pile up on the floor if you don't have a DC.
They are not all that noisy either. A planer- now THAT'S noisy. But then, machines do make some noise. That is their nature. Jointers will not make you go deaf, and the operator, not the jointer will ruin a $50 board.
Jointers prepare very good glue joints. Sprung joints, if you'ld like. A hand-planed joint can be demonstrated to give better glue adhesion in a laboratory. But we don't make wood joints for lab analysis. I figure that since sufficient stress to break my table tops and panels will always break the wood, not the joint, my jointer has done its job.
Jointers don't take up huge amounts of space. But the space they do take up is well used. And, no a table saw does not do the job of a jointer. Not even close.
JHMarkham,
I use wooden handplanes. I'm glad I was given the opportunity in life to appreciate these tools and the opportunity to use them. I use them on every project. But I use my jointer on every project I do. I can't imagine working without it. Don't get caught up in some "true believer" trap regarding one class of tool over another.
This kind of argument (discussion?) comes up time and again. And it's so frequently about jointers vs planes. I like to refer people to the best advice I have ever seen on this subject. It's from James Krenov, arguably THE icon of the rebirth of interest in woodworking in the US in the last 3rd of the 20th century. A man more linked to hand tools than most any other figure. Krenov describes the surprise of visitors to his shop (this was many years ago) to find that he had power tools - a jointer, table saw, band saw, drill press. He describes his growing lack of patience with their expectation that he do everything by hand, and their lack of understanding of the wisdom in using power tools.
Especially regarding the jointer, he rhetorically asks the reader why he should waste his energy doing the work that his power tools do so well, so accurately and so rapidly? He says he would be foolish to wear himself out doing that work by hand, when those machines can spare him that, leaving him the energy to be creative and skilful on the parts of the piece that need hand work.
Without the machines, he says, he would be exhausted by the preparation of stock. He would never have the energy to be the crafstman known as Krenov.
VL
Edited 2/10/2004 2:18:53 AM ET by Venicia L
I don't own a jointer, but will probably purchase one within the next year.
It has always seemed to me that the best approach would be to use both a power jointer and a handplane to edge-joint a board. The power jointer would quickly take off all the real high spots and get the edge perfectly square. A pass or two with the handplane would then create a perfect gluing surface, eliminating the very small ridges created by the power tool.
Maybe the same would be true for surface-jointing, but I'm not so sure about that.
Mark
Yep! I use both jointer, planer, hand-planes and scrapers. Always have, always will. Both have their merits and strong points. The knowledge of which to chose and when to use them separately or jointly is a step up the learning curve. Used in tandem they can be championship team if applied with the correct approach.
Regards...
sarge.jtProud member of the : "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
Dear Venicia L,
It has come to my attention you don't fully understand that other people have oppinions, which in this case, I gave mine to the gentleman asking for it. I did not give him some standardized opinion set up by acedemia, ie... Krenov. Apparently, this offended you so much as you felt the need to attack me and make a self-rightous attempt to be-little my thoughts on the subject. I will remind you that none of us are running for office here.- Chill Out.
My oppinion is one of a professional trim carpenter/woodworker. I own just about every power tool in the book and have been using them professionally for many years now. A couple of years ago it started biting at me that to make good quality jointery with powertools you generally spend more time building some wastefull jig than you do actually cutting the joints-details -what have you. I, like so many modern woodworkers are beginning to re-realize the virtues of the old way of doing things, and to my suprise, have found them , almost with out fail to be more effiecient and more conducive to quality than the power tool counter parts. After a little study, this is no suprise at all however when one realizes that woodworking with hand tools has been in a process of evolution for many thousands of years where as power tooling wood has evolved perhaps for all practical purposes(small shops), about 60 years.( I will add this- that once one understands the methods and attains skill as a woodworker, then you will begin to clearly understand which powertools are of benifit, usually at this point it becomes a question of which gives higher quality, less waste , not more speed- less work. Example- After making a cut on a well tuned table saw, it should only take 1 or 2 passes of a hand plane over the board, which may supprise you to find out that this does happen to be much less work-and possibly faster than running a heavy board over a noisy and unhealthy jointer.)
Power tools do excell in mass production furniture, home and cabinetry construction. Generally, mass production and fine quality craftsmanship are two very different things. Maybe you should post your oppinions over on the "Mass Production Woodworking "site.( I am only being sarcastic- just miffed that you had to make this ugly, other wise would have been delighted to read your oppinion.)
As for your argument on saving energy. Skill, efficiency, and sharp tools. You spend less time moving heavy wood over your power tool and more time tooling your wood. I would go to some local antique shops so as to realize just how much energy human beings have(tons of hand built furniture out there). In this day when so many Americans suffer from obesity and lung disease, I see no need to encourage either (or shoddy construction)any further. Besides, buying a lot of machinery does not make up for not being skilled, it-all to often- just makes a hack that can hack things faster. - Your oppinion is that someone should be bought and sold by the gimmicks of the large tool manufacturers( who feed on peoples' inherent laziness, and percieved ineptness), with out first considering the fundamentals of the trade itself. To me, the beauty of woodworking is that it is a hard won skill that could give many lifetimes worth of lessons for someone passionate enough about it to take on the challenge. I don't know it all , hope I never do. -THAT IS JUST MY OPPINION.
Edited 2/10/2004 4:56:02 PM ET by izac
Edited 2/10/2004 5:09:52 PM ET by izac
Edited 2/10/2004 5:11:50 PM ET by izac
Edited 2/10/2004 5:13:42 PM ET by izac
Izac,
Sweetie. Did you suffer some trauma at the hands of power tool junkies who forced you into a life of depravity with those noisy, smelly machines?
So nice to see a new contributor here. It's always good to have wide ranging points of view. Don't be shy. Jump right in with extremist, passionate, strident opinions about things. Start a war right off the bat and make sure you accuse anyone who disagrees with you, especially when you exaggerate and misstate facts, as having attacked you.
I look forward to learning from your far-reaching and important experiences with "the old way of doing things." I'm tempted to say something about converts and zealots, but better not.
Your pal,
VL
Ha, Ha , I win!
Hear, Hear, Venicia! I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment of the virtuous jointer.
Used in combination with a planer I can think of no greater machines for accuracy and efficiency.
Alas, mine is a 6" jointer so I still have plenty of use for my LN #5 when confronted with the inevitable wide board with cup or bow. But immediatedly following that labor the board's flat side quickly meets with the table of my 13" planer.
Disclosure: I do not have the skills, nor handplanes, required to fully joint and surface stock although I would love to.. much in the same way I wish I had more than one language with which to communicate.
Edited 2/10/2004 4:55:36 PM ET by bill
One of the things that I picked up from a graduate of the College of the Redwoods, which I have not seen mentioned here, is that the ability to make a joint disappear in wood with no grain is impossible to achieve with a jointer. Having seen his work as well as others and the fact that he uses what he was taught, I quickly became a believer in using a hand plane when I want the sweetest joint possible.
I still use a jointer, as does the gentleman from Krenovs' program, but never as the final preperation for glueing the joint. I also make my own handplanes and love them, which is another appreciation that I have learned. For all I know you are also a graduate, I am not, but since you mentioned Krenov, and I have had personal experience with one of his students, I thought I would pass on what I have learned from him and also learned to be true. This is merely my expereience and observation, so I mean no offence to anyone.
Rogue2608,
Yes, a final few pases with a hand plane can make a very tight joint. Not to doubt your ability at all to produce such joints, I would be willing to wager that given a number of joints from both jointers and hand planes done by skilled workers, the two types of joints could not be identified by better than random chance.
No, I am not a Krenov graduate. I admire his work and respect his skills and ability. They are far beyond anything I will achieve as a worker or teacher. But I believe I would be a dropout of that organization on the basis of irreverence, sarcasm and iconcastic tendancies. True believer types make me restless.
VL
Thank you for your reply. I agree with you that I or anyone would not be able to tell the difference if done by skilled woodworkers because we would not be able to see the joint, so whether there was one or ten we wouldn't know. If the joints were such that the lines were decernable, I or anyone would still not be able to tell the difference, but in this case it would not matter as neither joint is done to the degree that is possible.
For me, the purpose of joining boards together is not only to get a bigger board, but to make it look like one board. I cannot achieve that with a jointer unless the wood has grain that will hide the joint, maybe I am jointer challenged? If that is the case, I don't even look at the hand plane, just run it across the jointer and I am done. My goal is to have no visible line of the joint, whatever means gets me there is all I am concerned with, I don't care if it is powered by a motor or my arm. I might also add that this is a goal that I probably shoot for more that I hit, but none the less it is always my goal because I know it is possible.
If your jointer is missing it's chip breaker and clogging up then I'd certainly either add a chip breaker, replace the iron or possibly the entire plane. A wooden jointer should be able to produce a shaving every bit as smooth as any modern metal plane, after all it was the only ythis available to most woodworkers until the 1870s. I think that metal jointers never made it to the size of wooden ones simply becasue they become unhandleable (weight). I tried the 30-1/2in Norris which came up a David Stanley's auction last year and couldn't imagine who'd have the strength to use it - it was more than twice the weight of an equivalent-size wooden plane. The reason the bed of a jointer plane is so long is to minimise the tendency of the plane to "ride the waves". A smoother will never leave you with a really flat edge or surface simply because it tends to dip into any hollows - run a jointer across the rough sawn edge of a board straight from the mill and then try the same with a smoother to compare the actions and you'll see what I mean. In general, though, longer means flatter.
I'd agree with those who say that a jointer (surface planer) is more accurate than a hand plane - we have a 16 x 9in planer/thicknesser in the shop with an 88in table and I reckon that it's good for up to about 6 or 7ft accurate planing, with the addition of an outfeed roller stand, before the accuracy tapers off,. However, as Rob Millard states, machines like this cost a lot and take-up a lot of space. And I still find it necessary to use a jointer plane. For example, this morning I've just prepared a stack of 1in x 10in poplar boards - planed, edged and thicknessed by machine, then ripped to width and both the visible edges hand planed with a #8 jointer to remove the machining marks. I'll probably finish the surface with a sander to get rid of the ripple marks as this isn't a high price job, but were this a better quality job, say in oak, I'd probably plane and/or scrape the surfaces, too. And the same as another contributor I still "hand tune" joints with a hand plane to get an almost invisible joint on long pieces as the machine doesn't always perform flawlessly, especially on wild grained pieces.
Sorry, Venecia, but I can't agree you that jointers/planers "generate chips and fluffy shavings that pile up on the floor if you don't have a DC" - poplar generates a lot of dust on the first couple of passes, especially when thicknessing, making a DC and mask de rigeur. And when dealing with some tropicals and spalts and the like the problem gets worse - if you don't use a DC and mask with them you're asking for a trip to hospital, as I know from personal experience. To me the machines are a necessary timesaver and a requisite of running a viable business. However, if it were economically possible I'd do more by hand than I do.
Sorry if that doesn't answer your questrion, but everybody has a slightly different take on this one.
Scrit
Thanks to everyone for all the opinions. I think given my budget my best plan of action would be to stick with the hand plane option, upgrading to a jointer size plane. However buying L-N planes is not really an options. What seems like a luxury in US dollars, seems like the crown jewels in Canadian dollars.
JHMarkham,
I bought my #7 Stanley from a dealer for $60 bucks. The #4 cost $15 on ebay....the #5, 2- #3 cost about $15 each...and the #80 cost $20..all from tag sales. The scary sharp system, waterstones, grinder, strop and scrap piece of granite...priceless....lol
J H
I have three of the Veritas planes at this point and they are very good quality. I realize they are a mite expensive in Canadian money also, but they are an alternative to the LN an customs has been eliminated. I think BG has offered another alternative with the used and re-furbish idea.
Regards...
sarge..jtProud member of the : "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
If you are, like many of us, budget constrained, there are two or three things you can do to improve your plane's performance. (1.) Lap the sole and properly seat the frog, etc. This takes a few hours but will certainly make your plane work a lot better (2.) Replace the original cutter with a thicker one - there are a number to choose from: Clifton high carbon steel, Hock high carbon steel and A2 high speed steel and Veritas HSS to neme a few (there are plenty more). These two things will get your plane performing a lot nearer to a Lie-Nielsen than an Anant (cheap 'orrible Indian plane) if you (3.) replace the cap iron by one of the thicker ones offered by Clifton, Hock or Lie-Nielsen then you will improve the performance further. Still not quite L-N, but then you won't have spent the big bucks, either.
Good luck
Scrith
This does come up often, doesn't it? Probably because there is no "right" answer. For some people it's hand planes, for others it's power jointers, for many it's both.
I'm in the last category - I use both. For years, though, hand planes were all I needed, and I couldn't figure out why anyone would spend $400 for a power tool that didn't do anything a $100 handplane wouldn't do. Then I started trying to make money on this... while joining up 20 panels, I realized I needed to make some concessions to efficiency. So I now have the Delta 6", which works fine for 90% of what I do. If I need to flatten a wider board, I still have the handplanes.
I have to disagree with the contention that power jointers can't make an invisible joint. I do it all the time. You just take a very light, slow cut with the last pass; the "scallop" effect is virtually eliminated. And in oak, I have sometimes had problems with adhesion on hand-planed edges - the plane leaves a polished surface that makes a weaker joint. Seems there is such a thing as "too perfect."
So, if you don't need the increased efficiency, stick with the handplanes. They are more versatile and, IMHO, more fun to use. The only reason to buy a power jointer is to speed up certain tasks. "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." A. Einstein
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In my shop time to do a project is somewhat of a factor. Woodworking is a hobby for me but the satisfaction of a completed project is important. A jointer and planer help me to get wood ready for a project quicker than I can do with a handplane. I do love to use my handplanes and do almost everyday I am in the shop. I think a well balanced approach is important. For instance I have a 6" jointer so I can only joint 6" wide boards so to do wider I have to either rip them down and then rejoin or use a handplane. To summarize I have a jointer and planer and could not produce the projects that I make in the time I have without them.
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