Looking at the discussion on planers I’m wondering what jointer you recommend? Though I work as a finish carpenter can’t say I have much experience as a woodworker besides the overlap. Getting into woodworking to improve my skills and It’s fun! (ready for some frustrations, struggles and mistakes. Like to buy solid tools that’ll last. Money is always a consideration. What’s the take on jointers?
Thanks,
Pete
Replies
As with most tools and woodworking machines, IT depends upon what type of projects you plan on doing, how long you plan on woodworking, and of course your budget. Shop size as well.
Without knowing that information, its almost impossible to give good advise.
Flattening a reference face, and then an adjacent edge is always my first step in dimensioning lumber, and nothing is better at those tasks than a jointer. It really helps ensure that your joints fit tightly. Many of us only have room and/or budget for a 6" jointer, but 8" is the happier medium if you can swing it. The extra width, mass, length, and even power will come in handy sooner or later.
Grizzly offers alot of tool for the money.
Where I went to High School the football players beat up a couple of jointers that were in our school. But, fortunately, that was LONG, LONG ago. I joined the jointers for a while but gave it up (also a long time ago).
I feel that the jointer (biggest one you can squeeze into your shop) should be your first stationary power tool. There are ways to get a straight true edge without one but none near as easy. Having a jointer will allow you to purchase your lumber in an S2 state (surfaced two sides) instead of S4 which is EXPONENTIALLY MORE EXPENSIVE! It will also give you a reference edge to run against the fence of any other machines.
Happy Holidays!!
Regards,
Mack
"Close enough for government work=measured with a micrometer, marked with chalk and cut with an axe"
If you are at all handy buy an old used one off CL. You'll have a ton of fun fixing it up, learn a lot, and wind up with a way better tool than anything made today.
As for size, as the other posters have stated, it depends on your needs. 6" is a good place to start.
Dan
Just a view from "the other side", so take this as my (admittedly minority) opinion.
I have a jointer. I almost never use it.
With the relatively recent improvement of saw blades, you rarely need it to prepare a good joint. If a board is so out-of-flat that it needs to be jointed prior to thicknessing, it'll probably be too thin once it's done, so you should probably just leave it in the lumberyard or cut it into shorts.
The ability to process roughsawn lumber opens up a whole world of possiblities since it means you'll have access to more variety of woods at lower prices. The two tools essential to this are 1) a thickness planer and 2) a reasonably decent table saw with a good blade, like a Forrest or Freud glueline blade.
In my shop, a trip to the jointer is usually just a wasted step.
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA
Got to disagree here a little.
If the woodworker drys his own lumber or uses lots of full rough lumber,
a jointer is a necessity.If the woodworker buys all s2s or s4s, I would then agree with you except I probably wouldnt group him/her in the woodworkers group
Well, that's why I'm in the minority I guess. ;-)
I personally went through probably 600 bf of lumber in the last year with narry a 2X4 in the mix. All rough sawn 4/4, 6/4 and 8/4 white and red oak, cherry and walnut. I made a bunch of furniture, trim, built-ins, you name it. I used the jointer exactly zero times.
I did go through a Forrest blade (well, I had to have it resharpened) and a set of planer knives, but my jointer rested all year under its blankie.
I'm always looking for more efficiency. I won't do something just because "that's how it's always been done." Once I discovered glue line blades, I never looked back.
Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PA
I purchased a 12' long.. 8/4 S1 piece of maple that varied from 6 3/4" to 7 1/2" in width 3 days ago to laminate into kitchen knife holders for gifts. The only piece of 8/4 left on my suppliers shelf that day was nice but had a slight cup (3/64" approx) in the length. I much prefer a flat piece of stock when face glueing as 1 3/4" stock after planing is a bit much to bring out with clamp pressure. I did not have time to come back the next day as they would re-stock from their saw-mill. Not a problem as I have a jointer and hand planes.
Not attempting to be contrary as the TS is fine to do edges but... how do you use it to take cups and twist out of a piece of stock? In other words a jointer is used for more than to true one edge. A hand plane works fine also but requires more horse-power supplied by you and is a slower process.
Regards for the holidays, Mike...
Sarge..
Edited 12/18/2008 9:36 am ET by SARGEgrinder47
Slight cups, no problem. But I don't use a TS to flatten the stock -- I just use the thickness planer.
Run 'em through the thicknesser, concave side down first till you have one flat side, flip it over and finish it off. Done. (Well, almost. You still need to clean up all them shavings I guess! ;-) )
Next, make a reasonably straight reference edge, with a circular saw & guide or a rip jig for the TS if necessary, and set that edge against the TS fence. Rip the far edge as wide as possible with the glue line blade, and use that new edge as the reference side for subsequent rips. This method has the added advantage of allowing you to rip to the exact width needed without having to sneak up on it on the jointer.
Seriously twisted or really badly cupped wood stays at the yard for the next guy. When you come right down to it, wood that starts out that bad needs so much work, it's usually too thin to use once it's "fixed" anyway, even if you do use a jointer. A jointer doesn't make a stick straight -- it just cuts off everything that's crooked. ;-) Also, I find that wood that's problematic on the pile tends to move a lot while machining since it's often not internally stable -- so I avoid it.
Hey, I'm not saying don't buy a jointer. But given a choice of purchasing machinery to start out, for me it would be #1 TS, #2 thicknesser. Jointer comes much later, when I have an extra 5 or 600 bucks laying around. Incidently, my jointer has a rabbeting table -- something that many new units don't have. And making wide rabbets is one thing I find the jointer particularly useful for.
Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PA
Mike... I couldn't agree more about seriously cupped or twisted should not be taken home but... if someone gives you a couple of hundred board feet they don't want to mess with... I will take it as I will find a way to use it and I have a jointer to take care of that task. :>)
Regards...
Sarge..
I need to get a Forrest Blade after reading your post.
Reducing jointer time will be a time saver.
And I have some cargo blankets should I need to cover it.All my wood is rough. Most I have felled and dried.And I like your method if fattening with the planer.I have been doing the same for years because 16-18 inch boards are difficult to flatten on an 8" jointer.I have a couple red oak boards that wont fit thru my 20" planer.
Saving those bad boys for something special!1 more question - What do you do with all your table saw blades after using Forrest blades?Rokk
Truthfully? I tossed about 15 lbs of blades after they sat on the shelf, unused, for years after I switched to the Forrests.
I did keep one rip blade for construction grade-type cuts, and the rest were ballast.
One more thing I forgot to mention -- if you're skipping the jointer, you can't take huge passes with the planer. You don't want the feed rollers to flatten the board -- just feed it. Otherwise, any cup will reappear on the other side. I limit my planer cuts to 1/32" anyway, so it's not an issue for me.
And if you do get a Forrest or two, send 'em back to Forrest for sharpening. They do a great job for a reasonable price.
Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PA
correct on the plaining and thin passes
been doing that for quite some time
I think there is a confusion on the use of the word "jointer".....
Mike is thinking of it strictly in terms of jointing (straightening) edges .
The OP seems to be thinking in terms of surfacing ie preparing one face and adjacent edge on r/s boards.
Seems to me that these days the difference between the two machines has become blurred.
A surfacer of width 12 twelve inches and table length 8 feet will do a good whack of r/s board preparation-and be able to joint most work for furniture purposes, whilst not being too big in a small shop.
Philip Marcou
"Mike is thinking of it strictly in terms of jointing (straightening) edges ."
Well, not exactly -- which is why my methods are firmly on the minority side of the fence. (In which fact I revel -- I actually enjoy being "differnt"!)
Since I added a thickness planer and GL blades to my arsenal several years ago, the combination of the two have all but eliminated the need for me to pull the jointer, or "surfacer", if you will, out of it's stall. I flatten the surfaces of the stock with the planer, and finish/joint edges with the TS.
As I mentioned before, I'm not trying to convince anyone to never buy a jointer, or cajole anyone to toss their perfectly functioning jointer onto the garage sale pile. What I am suggesting is that for beginners on limited budgets, or those with limited space, a jointer is not the necessity that many seem to believe it is.
But if anybody has an 8'X12" jointer they want to, er, "relocate" after trying my radical approach, I'm there for ya'! ;-) (Although that would definately be WAY too big for my small shop.) ;-(
Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PA
The word jointer is used almost extensively here in the U.S. to describe what you guys across the pond refer to as a surface planer, Phillip. Planer is used to refer to what is known elsewhere as a thickness planer. Mike uses his TS to edge joint and his thickness planer to surface plane the width of a board.
Flattening the face can be done with a thickness planer.. but really needs a sled under the stock to support the work to avoid the thickness planer flattening the stock under the rollers but having the cup return after the stock has left the downward pressure of the rollers.
IMO... this is far to slow a method for my needs but.. is viable if one doesn't have the surface planer or jointer which are the same which is the case often with just starting out and on a budget.
Regards...
Sarge..
Edited 12/19/2008 11:38 am ET by SARGEgrinder47
Edited 12/19/2008 11:39 am ET by SARGEgrinder47
Edited 12/19/2008 11:41 am ET by SARGEgrinder47
Have to disagree.
You do NOT need a sled under boards to Flatten using a thickness plainer.Mike explained the process quite clearly.
It works and have been doing it for quite some time.And besides, I would like to see someone successfully FLATTEN a 9 1/2 inch board that is 12 feet long on a jointer.Lots of luck
The sled was just was mentioned as I thought I had heard that from several people that use the thickness planer to flatten. If you say so (?) I suppose that is wrong as I don't use a thickness planer to flatten... I use a jointer and have since the early 70's.
"And besides, I would like to see someone successfully FLATTEN a 9 1/2 inch board that is 12 feet long on a jointer.
Lots of luck".....
About a year ago I surface prepped 2000 linear feet of rough pecan for a client. 12 months before that I did 4000 linear feet for the same client from the same batch taken from a pecan grove. He has around 3500 linear feet left I will do when he is ready. This stock ranged from 6" - 12" wide and 10' - 12' long as all was random width and lengths.
Now... maybe I am missing something in my part time rough stock preparation business I do on the side Roggy, so... could you please explain to me why I can't flatten a 9 1/2" board 12' long on a jointer!
And then please explain to me why you can using a thickness planer and how it would be worth my while running the remaining 3500 linear feet through a thickness planer at 1/32" a pass!
Sarge..
Edited 12/19/2008 2:40 pm ET by SARGEgrinder47
"And besides, I would like to see someone successfully FLATTEN a 9 1/2 inch board that is 12 feet long on a jointer."
That is precisely what a surface planer is for-it will have long beds and sufficient width, whereas the jointer only has long beds and is very narrow-typically 6 inches. (However I am talking of industrial types so what I say is probably not relevant regarding the difference between a jointer and a surfacer.Just to be clear--a surfacer is not a thicknesser (or planer in Americanese).
Philip Marcou
Roggy,
There's no need to make that 9-1/2"x12' board flat on one side with a jointer. It only needs to be faced so that there is a reference the length of the board on the same plane. Another way is to say it is that the board needs to make a constant "touch" with the knives through the length of the board.
This makes one face of the board have a smooth plane on the "high" of the length of the board (there are still lots of lows that are untouched.)
Moving to the surface planer now... Running this 'faced' side on the bed of your surface planer creates the reference and you can surface the other side, flip the board over, and finish surfacing the 'faced' side.
As for the rest of the debate. The way I'm reading it, EVERYONE IS RIGHT.
If you have reasonably straight, flat stock, there is no need for a jointer to face one side for reference. While it is probably true that a slightly cupped board will compress and spring back while surfacing, it think it is also true that this effect minimizes on each pass until it is gone and you wind up with a well surfaced board. If the board has excessive cupping using a jointer to get a reference face is going to wind up leaving you with a veneer anyway, so what use is jointing it? The solution on a severely cupped board is to rip it into two or three less severely cupped boards, surface them and then glue it back up.
If the board you want to surface has bow or twist the surface planer isn't going to make that go away without the help of a sled. In this case, one side has to be faced on a jointer (or with a good old hand plane or a hand held power plane.) If the bow or twist is severe, I find it best to cut the parts I need out of the board first, oversized, then use the jointer or hand plane to "face" the reference side before going to the surface planer.
I agree with Mike that we should buy the best material we can and leave that twisted and bowed stuff in the racks. But sometimes there is no choice; sometimes we want a particular figure in the board and that's the one with the twist, cup and bow; sometimes a board that was reasonable straight and flat, once being cut, has certain demons in it that become liberated as we put it through the saw - or overnight as we sleep; sometimes the only stock we can get ain't so great and rather than drive many miles or wait, we buy what we can get.
I've got a small 6" jointer because of limited space. That and my hand planes get me through when I have smaller pieces or have to cut bigger pieces down to size. When I buy stock for a project I usually have my supplier face one side for me - at a nominal charge. He has a jointer that should have USS Enterprise written across it - it's a (guessing) 24 wide by 10-12' long mass of iron from an era long gone.
Wow, I rambled on... I'll Forrest Gump my way out of here with... "and that's all I got to say about that."
Frank
A) I know what the purpose of and HOW to USE and set up a Jointer.
Mine is only an 8".
B) I used 9 1/2" only as a medium width board.
I am still waiting to hear HOW you handle the 12 foot length?And yes, I can and HAVE edge jointed 12 foot stock with my 8" jointer using roller stands and clamping jigs on the jointer.
Not fun work, but good results.C) really twisted boards cant be flattened using a thickness plainer,
but CUPPED boards can and EASIER than on an 8" jointer, especially when the board is 11-14" wide (which I have MANY).
Really twisted boards need to be purchased by others; however,
should some of your OWN dry that way - they need to be CUT into usable shorts because NO machine that i am aware of can CORRECT them at full length.D) How wide can you flatten easily on the jointer?
I have perhaps a dozen and a half approaching 18-20' wide
and a handful over 20"I am most interested in how you handle that 12 foot length.Am assuming at least a power feed?Please tell me.
The same way you handle 12'-16' lengths on a table saw and 20" thickness planer... with friction support extentions on both ends of in-feed and out-feed. And power feed would be nice but I don't have one yet but... am definitely considering one. Most rough I get has been milled to 6/4 and 8/4 with some 4/4 and some 12/4. If you are working with 4/4 and have bow.. you have to do as Frank say and cut it down or you end up with nothing. But... with bow on 6/4 and 8/4 I hog the ends off on my larger BS as long as the bow is not excessive.. then proceed.
But with cup... it is done the same way you would a 6' length. For twist refer back to Frank's post.
Sarge..
Edited 12/19/2008 6:47 pm ET by SARGEgrinder47
I have a pretty large shop, with a large jointer, but one of my favorite tools that sees a lot of work, is my Makita Power-plane, which I can take out to job-sites, and makes a great option to a small stationary jointer for those who have smaller shops.
Here is a link. http://www.makitafactoryoutlet.com/makita/products/1806B.asp
I have a set of wooden jaws in several of my bench vises which allow me to flip it over, and use it like a bench jointer rather than hand holding it.
This size tool is far superior to the smaller ones on the market. I have been using the same one for over 25 years. If I lost or broke this one, I would have another on the way the next week.
My question would be what's your budget and what is your power capabilities?
I used a delta 6" for years. It was short ran on 110 and got the job done. I've upgraded to the grizzly 12" and worlds apart at 220v. I spent 1500 for mine, but you can get a good 8" for half that.
If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it.
And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
Power supply is whatever I want to make it. Lost a renter money getting a bit tighter. Next project is to make a take-off of Gary Rogowski's Asian style bed. Curious about the portable planer recommended above, not sure how that would do the job of a jointer easily(making parallel planes). While money is tight, I believe in buying solid, dependable tools and I'm looking to get a bit more serious and stay for the long haul.
Technically you can use a hand plane to joint or router and jig. I've used a LN #7 to flatten stock. Wore my butt out, but I did it. Grizzly makes some nice 8" very reasonable. I don't regret foregoing the spiral cutter head and going for the wider jointer. Good luck. Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
habilisYou're always bound to get the full spectrum of possible answers on this forum, that's for sure!From several years of reading enthusiast forums, the most common compromise seems to be an 8" long bed jointer. The 8" is a good size for the bulk of boards used in furniture. Bigger is always nicer, but gets pretty expensive. A lot of woodworkers start with a 6" unit, then upgrade if/when they find it too short/narrow. It sounds like you want to avoid that.I think you'd find the quality of most 8" jointers more than adequate. A lot of guys buy Grizzly. It's a lot of bang for the buck. I doubt you'd be disappointed with any 8" jointer though.david bTime flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.David B
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