Jointer question

[ldavies]

I am a newbie to woodworking and am finding the cost of s4s wood to be very high.  I was thinking of buying a jointer and was wondering how you would go about make a piece of wood that was wider than the width of the jointer flat.  For example, if I have a something that is rough cut 4/4 and 16" wide but only have a 6" jointer how would I go about getting it flat?

Thx,  Lloyd

 

[Per Swenson]

Hi Lloyd,

Planer, and planer sled

are your best bet.  Then of course there is winding sticks and a hand power plane or a hand powered plane.

Which is where the word work comes from in woodworking ;D

Per

 

[clintholeman]

I just got a Record #7 Joiner plane given to me - ooooo so smooth!

I was testing this puppy to see how think I could go with it - you can read through the shaving easily!

It is the best way to finish - IMO.

 

[Scott W.]

I am a newbie to woodworking and am finding the cost of s4s wood to be very high.  I was thinking of buying a jointer and was wondering how you would go about make a piece of wood that was wider than the width of the jointer flat.  For example, if I have a something that is rough cut 4/4 and 16" wide but only have a 6" jointer how would I go about getting it flat?

Thx,  Lloyd

Per is dead on, not a lot of choices here.
Hand plane (alot of work to get it right)
Planer sled (tedious at best) and you need at least 16 in planer for a 16 in. wide board

some other options:
router with a jig
rip the board joint it & glue it  back up (what I do if I need more than my 12 in. Jointer)
find a shop / friend with a wide jointer or a wide belt abrasive sander

Scott W.

 

[ktcruickshank]

If stock doesn't fit on a stationary machine jointer, then, as has been mentioned already, you might consider hand planing. I know that this ideas sounds intimidating to the uninitiated (and I love my power tools - especially my Festool tools) us much as anyone, but there is sometimes a time when hand tools can make quick work of things. Truing up large stock is one of those instances - especially in cases where this is wind or twist in stock. Stationary planers won't fix this without jigs, and most jointers can't handle larger stock. That's when I grab the hand plane. Within minutes I can take wind out of stock and have it ready for the planer. Here is a video on my personal blog, that I put together on how to take wind out of stock:http://woodtreks.com/how-to-use-a-hand-plane/21/

I hope you find it useful. Now back to my power sanding .

Keith Cruickshank

 

[Jesse Cloud]

Hey Lloyd,
Good advice above.  Here's my 2 cents.

Hand planing would be a solution, but its a skill that takes a while to build, and you will need another new skill - sharpening - before you get that board flat.

If you are really a newbie, I personally think there are other, more important skills to build first - like mortise and tenon joinery, accurate measurement, cutting true and square, using a scraper, finishing, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I have a LV bevel up jointer thats just about my favorite tool, but its the third handplane I bring to the job (after a scrub and a jack plane).  I truly love that plane and its the only solution for something like a large table thats already glued up (see my personal picture).

I would second the advice to rip the board into 6 inch segments.  Also, you will lose a lot more material when you flatten a wide or long board than when you flatten smaller ones.

Lastly, what's the application?  You wouldn't usually want a 16 inch board in a project, two 8 inchers would be more stable and way more efficient. 

 

[tvgordon]

I'm going to have to go along with Scott and Jesse,

It would be best to rip the board, joint and plane it and then glue it back together.  It will be more stable than one wide board and you can use smaller machines (6" jointer and 12" benchtop planer).  Just be sure to mark how the board goes back together so the grain lines up again.

I like the idea of handplaning, but there's more skills involved and the high quality planes are almost as expensive as the power tools.

A portable power plane may also work for you.  I smoothed a few boards with my Makita power plane and Delta "lunchbox" planer before I bought my jointer.

Tom.

 

[CharlesWilson]

Hi Lloyd,

Planer, and planer sled

are your best bet.  Then of course there is winding sticks and a hand power plane or a hand powered plane.

Which is where the word work comes from in woodworking ;D

Per

Per,

Thanks for the link. I put the beast together, and gave it a try on an 8-1/2" wide 5 foot long piece of 5/4 Walnut. It was a little tricky without infeed and outfeed support, but the results were super. The finished thickness was 1" on the dot!

Charles

 

[clampman]

Charles,

Good choice, and I'm glad it worked for you. For the future, you may want to try taking a hand power plane to the worst twists and bumps before setting that side down on your sled.

You can often save considerable thickness that way - and also maximize the length of usable stock when you get to the worst of the twists at the ends that don't meet your thickness requirements.

If you rip the material before planing, don't count on being able to match the grain because it won't likely happen. It changes way too much with even slight differences in depth of cut. Check out a stack of veneer sometime and see how much it changes for every 30 thousandths depth of cut.

Good thread here.

Cheers,
Jimc

 

[douglas2cats]

I've also only got a 6" jointer. I've done the jointer plane route a number of times and the router sled for the first time recently. For one or 2 boards either one is effective. But the place I buy most of my hoardwood charges so little to joint boards that it's just not worth my time to do a lot of it. The last purchase there was a batch of purpleheart that would all fit my planer but not my jointer. I think it cost me an extra $10 to have one face done on their humongous jointer. It would have taken me literally most of a weekend doing it with a jointer plane or a solid day with a router sled then smoothing. The place charges by the hour for the extra milling, but they can do 5-6 good sized boards in less than 15 minutes. It takes me that long just to get machines pulled out and plugged in.

 

[Per Swenson]

Douglas,

Take a lookee here.

Per

 

[douglas2cats]

Geez just what I need - another reason to upgrade to a Festool CS ;D  I'm gessing I could do something similar with my OF1400 if I got the long guide rails.

The edge jointing isn't much of a problem (at least on the lengths I usually deal with). It's the initial flattening of 1 face that's the real 6" jointer limitation.

Doug

 

[Per Swenson]

Douglas,

What we seem to forget are tools are a means to a end.

For some of us the joys of owning the latest and greatest far outweigh

the list of accomplishments carried out with said tools.

Yeah I said that.  Let me explain. This $500 plane,

is awesome. But for the last 200 years the same job has been accomplished with this one

Saturday garage sale 10 bucks and a little work.

Don't get me wrong, today you won't see me with one of those in my hand, but my circumstances are different.

I don't like the working part of woodworking. The romanticism of hand crafting is easily interrupted by the clock.

Then again I know people that with that tool combined with learned skill, you know practice, that will flatten a board

before I can get the junk off the jointer and plugged in.

What I am trying to say is that any endeavor becomes a matter of priorities.

Cost plus time for pleasure or profit.

And if you are doing this for pleasure, a learned skill is invaluable.

My father, Bob, the old geezer has a great lesson he repeats. Often.

Comes up every time I go look at a new camera.

He reminds me that he can take a better picture with a shoe box, pinhole, home made

camera then I can take with his Hasselblad.

Because its not Hardware, but experience and composition.

Ok, I have run on long enough with out saying anything, take it for what its worth.

Per

 

[Loren Woirhaye]

I've flattened boards with a 12" jointer, with hand planes, and with
a combination of jointer and hand planes.

If I didn't have the space for a jointer I would use a hand-held
electric planer to hog off the offending bumps and finish
flattening with a jack plane or larger plane.  Then flip the board
and run it through the planer.

The truth is you only need to get the "cup" out of the board
and if there is twist you need to correct that somewhat  before
you plane the other face parallel.  This takes some skill
and experience to do quickly...

but...

You cannot do it quickly with just hand planes.  A hand-held
electric planer can really mess up a board but if you are attentive
it can also save a lot of sweat.  I have a Makita.  I rounded
the ends of the blades so it doesn't leave such deep marks
when working surfaces.

If you have the machinery to do so quickly it's sometimes
simpler to rip the board in half than it is to remove cupping.