I’m a raw beginnger at woodworking, just starting to put my shop together and reading everything I can get my hands on. My overall objective is to learn to make furniture.
Something I’ve read has me confused.
Several different sources have indicated that the very first steps of any project is to prepare the stock with a jointer and then a planer/thicknesser. What confuses me is the jointer. Is the primary purpose of the jointer to get the two adjacent faces “perfectly” perpendicular to each other (i.e., an edge and a face)? –to get *three* faces perpendicular (2 edges and 1 face)? –or something else?
A related question: affordable jointers seem to typically have 6″ knives. How do you plane the face of stock wider than 6″? Run the board through, reverse it, and run it through again? Wouldn’t this leave obvious tool marks in the center of the board?
Thanks,
-M.
Replies
I'll take a stab and some of the true experts here can correct me if I'm off base.
A jointer can do two things well. One of them is to take a board and make one surface (not an edge but the larger top or bottom) and make it perfectly flat. After you've face jointed a board you can then take it to the planer and, with the faced joint down, plane the other face to be perfectly parallel to the jointed face.
You can then place one of the faces on the fence to get one of the edges flat and square to the face. Lastly, you take the board to the table saw and, with the jointed edge against the fence, get the last edge square and parallel to the jointed edge.
If you need to face joint pieces larger than 6 inches you can't use a 6 inch jointer. As a beginner, you're better off buying lumber that is already face jointed and planed so that you don't have to worry about this step. Lumber face jointed and planed is known as S2S (surfaced two sides).
It's possible but extremely tricky to face joint rough lumber on a planer. You can build a sled for the lumber to ride on and you need to shim the lumber so that it rides perfectly flat. But a planer exerts tremendous downward pressure on a board which tends to flatten out cups and warps, so this is problematic at best.
Experts can, and do, get the first side of a board flat using hand planes. If you do that you can then place the board in a planer to get the other side flat. Only you can decide if this makes sense for you.
John
Excellent description, John. The magazine article suggested above is also an excellent resource for learning the basics of these two machines and how they work together to produce good working stock.
As far as real-life goes, if you've never had access to a jointer, it's hard to imagine what a difference it can make in your woodworking. Being able to joint an edge perfectly flat and at an exact 90-degree angle to the face of the board has a significant effect on the quality of that stock when it comes off the tablesaw in later milling processes.
Certainly, woodworking can be done without a jointer -- as you mentioned, a sled and wedges can be used to get that first flat face, and also boards can be jointed on the tablesaw, but a jointer makes the tasks go by much more quickly and, IMO, more precisely for the most part.
If you hanker for more info after reading the magazine article, I'd recommend the book Jointers and Planers by Rick Peters.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
I'm sure you're right about jointers making this all easier. I don't have one because to do this right I'd need a 12 inch (or bigger) jointer. I use S2S lumber, mostly, and for the rough stuff I abrasive plane it (Performax 16-32).
The only thing I could do with a small jointer would be to square the first edge of a board, and I can do that extremely accurately on my table saw ... albeit much, much slower.
My ideal shop would have a 20 inch jointer and lots of other toys. Now, where's my lottery ticket?
By the way, I've also used a router to joint the first edge of a board. It's pretty quick and works quite well. If the board is flat, the edge will be absolutely 90 degrees and if your straight edge is "straighth", you'll get an edge that compares to a jointer.
John
I am a beginner also and by no means an expert, but for what it is worth, the jointer is a multi-purpose tool. You can use it to clean up saw marks on the edges after ripping, to take a cup out of a board (concave side down), to remove rough sawn portions of lumber, chamfer edges with the fence tilted to 45 degrees, rabbet edges, clean edges to make sure there is a tight fit for edge joining boards to form panels and others. The main use is to prepare a board to be ripped by ensuring that one edge and square and one face is flat so they can ride on the table (of the table saw) and up against the fence respectively. This will ensure that the board can be ripped and produce square cuts etc. As for jointing boards wider than 6", I have not figured out a good way as of yet, but I have done what you described...run one side across then flip it around and run it across the opposite side. It does leave marks. I am also interested to see what others have to say about that. I use my planer to reduce the thickness of boards and to smooth out any rough spots on boards. I hope that does not add to your dilemma. Good luck!
The only way I can imagine jointing a piece of lumber wider than the width of the jointer knives is to take off the guard to allow the piece to pass over the knives. This sends shivers up my spine thinking about the cutter head being exposed during this whole operation.
I'm *very* much a rookie in this woodworking business and still have an extremely healthy respect of these power machines. I can, as I've heard said by others who comment here, count to 10 without taking my shoes off.
Intend to keep it that way.
Thus far, I haven't built anything that required a piece wider than the capacity of my jointer. But when/if I do, I suspect I'll rip pieces to a suitable width to fit the jointer, prepare the stock, then edge-glue back up to get the required width. I could be all wet, but my intuition tells me that if I alternate the orientation of the growth rings, I'll get a more stable end result anyway. Not stable with respect to expansion/contraction with moisture content variation but as it pertains to warping.
...........
Dennis in Bellevue WA
[email protected]
There is also a article/explaination of the jointer & planer symbiosis, in the latest tools&shops magazine by Fine Wood Working. Its worth the look.
Cheers
Mitt
A jointer is a nice machine to have and an 8 inch is most desirable. However, your pocketbook may not permit buying a good one (usually $1200 and up for an 8 inch). I've had a shop for over 30 years and just acquired a jointer in the last 10. Before that, I used hand planes and/or purchased wood prepared so I didn't need to do much joining. Everything a jointer does can be done by hand but you have to weigh the trade offs of which machine will save you time/money vs epediency.
Mark,
A jointer is a nice luxury for a hobbyist woodworker. I say "luxury" because, IMO, you don't really need one. I would dare say (I'm sure my error will quickly be pointed out to me) that there's not a piece of furniture that you can't build without a jointer. Hand planes are just too easy to use. Not to pooh pooh on jointers now. They're nice. They serve a valuable purpose, and if you're doing any sort of production work, they're necessary to save labor.
I don't have one, but I have used one enough to acknowledge their value. A jointer is definitely on my list of items to acquire, as is a shaper. I’ll probably spring for the shaper first – but I think I need to add on to the shop first. Lol.
It's fairly easy to flatten one face of a board and straight edge it with a hand plane and / or skil saw or straight edge and table saw. Once that's done, it's relatively easy to make that one edge dead square with the flat face on a table saw. A thickness planner will make the second face parallel with the first, and the table saw will make the second edge parallel with the first.
As far as glue joints go, I get good results fresh off the table saw. Others probably disagree.
If money is an issue, my money would go to a dust collector, table saw, band saw, a drill press w/ mortise attachment or mortiser, a couple of routers (one for a table) a thickness planner (I hate these necessary things – loud and makes a mountain of chips) a cordless drill and power drill, a bench top sander, a random orbital sander, a belt sander, a miter saw, a biscuit jointer, a saber saw, a skil saw, a collection of hand planes, a great set of bench chisels and carving chisels, a few different hand saws, vises, a good workbench, clamps, lath, gouges, clamps, router bits, sharpening stones and grind stones, hand planes, did I say clamps?, spoke shaves, mallets, squares, marking devices, etc. long before I'd invest in a jointer. Items are not listed in order of importance. I'm sure jointer fans will quickly let me know the err of my thinking.
Have fun setting up shop.
jdg
Mark I don't have a jointer, I had a small one several years ago and sold it. I use my tablesaw to edge joint with great success and my 12" Delta planer for thickness. There are those of us that use a jointer and those that don't, I'm one that don't. I have a 10' section of aluminum U channel I clamp to my tablesaw fence to edge joint. I can glue joint an 8' foot board in a couple of passes. You would have to have a pretty big jointer to do this.
Welcome to woodworking.
God Bless
les
Wood working has been a hobby of mine for the last 40 years, I finally got a jointer with in the last 18 months. Before that time I alway used hand planes, then I got arthritis in my shoulders making it painful to plane a lot by hand. If you have a couple of good hand planes you do not need a jointer IMO.
Scott T.
I agree with jdg and Scott, a set of hand planes will do the job extremely well and much safer. I don't have a jointer, and see no reason to get one in the foreseeable future.
3 handplanes will get your boards smooth and flat. Start with a scrub plane ( can be any plane with a camberred iron ) and get rid of the really high parts. Switch to a #5 or #6 ( I use a #6 because I like the weight ) and level everything off. Then use a #4 to smooth the board.
If you like you can do this to one face, then send it through the planer, and finally square up the edges.Keep your shop and your shop will keep you. --Benjamin Franklin
Look at it this way, For about $400 you can get an ok jointer or a top of the line Lie-Nielsen No.8 Jointer plane.
I for one enjoy making shavings with hand planes to power jointers anyday. And while I never understood it a power jointer is supposedly one of the more dangerous tools in the shop. They are definatly loud, a pain to set up, if you plane a nail you get a groove, etc......
I've used them when I had them but never once regretted not having one.
HTH
N
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled