Howdy y’all.
I’ve been reading posts for a while now, kinda peaking over your shoulders and always come away learning something new every time. Thank you all for that. What a wealth of knowledge in your posts/responses!
I’ve always thought that the only reliable way to square-up a board, started by running one face on the jointer, then using that up against the fence to square up an edge. Then and only then, run the piece thru a thickness plainer in order to generate the opposite face. All of that, results in 3 sides perfectly flat, and square to each other. Then finish the piece on a table saw.
Is that not normal anymore? I’m hearing about “Straight-Line” milling machines, or fine woodworking boutiques, not even having a jointer at all. The job can not be done (correctly in my opinion) all by using a thickness plainer, right?
Replies
I would never rip a warped board on my table saw without
flattening it on my jointer first.
It eliminates the throw back danger and makes a better cut
when it's flat and not able to rock.
I also join the edge after each rip to keep a straight edge against the fence.
And NO, you'll never straighten a curved or warped board going through
the planer without a jointer first unless you have a special jig to hold it
being the exception.
A jointer can make woodworking much safer and better.
It's a valuable tool.
I don't own a jointer, and never have. 40-ish years of working wood. Thickness planer, table saw, and very rarely a jack plane is all I use. No fancy sleds or jigs either. I wouldn't take a jointer if they were giving them away.
Not sure how you arrived at your conclusion, but the most efficient and economical way to square up rough lumber is a multi-step process where the jointer plays an intergral role. At present, I don't believe woodworkers are cheeringly chucking their jointers overboard.
It all depends on what you do.
If you buy your lumber at a box store, you probably don't have much need for a jointer, you can get away with simply ripping on the tablesaw and planing. If you buy rough or mill your own, a jointer becomes more of a necessity but there are still ways around it.
It more of a 'method of work" machine. As long as you get the end result you want, it doesn't matter how you flattened the board.
Quite possible to get away without one, though not always optimal or efficient.
Hand planes, routers, and thickness planer (commonly with jigs) all offer alternatives. And are often resorted to even by those who own jointers, for extra wide stock too big for their machines. But if faced with a big pile of rough stock to be milled four-square for a project, it's hard to beat a jointer for speed and convenience.
As is the case with everything, budget plays a role. Every woodworker is a a different stage of acquisition. I agree the planer and table saw have to come first. I might even say the band saw should come before the jointer. There are many techniques to "fake" a jointer. Some people get comfortable with those processes and can never justify the expense of a jointer. That's OK - its the result that counts.
I got by without one for years, but I would not go back.
The commercial mills have a 4 sided planer that does a pretty good job of planing already reasonably straight rough lumber. I think the bed rollers are rubber so there is some adjustment possible. They also have straight line rip machines, where the lumber is moved thru the saw by a "chain" with flat surfaces between the pivot points. Once the chain grabs it, it goes straight thru. These are more accurate than the straight-o-planers. Outside the mills and in our shops, if we start with rough cut lumber (not already planed at a big box store), we have to do some version of these operations. You can roughly flatten one side with a scrub plane or jack plane, or you can use a jointer. If you have a not-too-long piece, and an already flattened board longer than it, you can mount the work piece on the flat board and shim it in multiple places against the flat board so that the feed rollers of the planer don't distort it, and run it thru the planer to get the first flat side. Then put that side down on the planer bed and do the other side. When you have flat parallel surfaces, you can joint one edge with a jointer, a jointer hand plane, or if you have a longer board with a straight edge, you can fasten the straight board to the work piece with the straight edge overhanging, and run that against the fence to create your first straight edge on the work piece. Then of course run that new edge against the fence and you have your work piece ready to use.
As you can see, a jointer is not essential, but a huge time saver compared to hand planes and work-arounds. (Actually, same with the thickness planer and table saw.) What is essential for top quality work is that your work pieces are properly prepared, with straight, parallel faces and edges square to the faces. When I am gluing up two or more boards to make a table top or such, I still use a jointer plane after creating the basic straight edge on a jointer, to get the slightly sprung joint that ensures durability in the joint.
By the way, if I am using a reactive wood like cherry, or lumber recently kiln dried, I use the band saw to rough out blanks a bit (~1/4") oversize before I start the process, so that when I rip to final width, the board stays straight instead of bowing from internal tension no longer counter-balanced in the wood. Removing that ~1/8" edge of extra wood doesn't affect the piece enough to bow it; whatever way it wanted to move, it did that when you bandsawed it (when you still had some extra to compensate for the movement.)
You got get me thinking about all the other ways you could get a really good flat surface - OTTOMH:
1. Hand planes
2. Powered hand held planers (often best with a sled)
3. Router sled
4. Table saw (for pieces smaller than the blade height available)
5. Planer with sled and shims
6. CNC
7. Drum sander (or belt sander at a pinch)
8. Super surfacer (don't go there)
All of these except the table saw are VERY SLOW compared with a jointer. There is no way I know of to surface a board faster than you can do so with a well-tuned jointer, especially if the board is getting larger. Other methods also need more skill to use and set up than the jointer, which is really easy to use. That speed comes at the cost of safety though - jointers are probably the most dangerous tool in the workshop, but I can get a perfectly flat board in under 60 seconds from whoa to go. Of course, some jointers are a pain to set up - my deWalt device can take 2 hours of pain to get tuned perfectly, but that is a once in a decade adjustment.
So yes, the jointer is alive and well if only because they are efficient. For people like me who have very little time and even less patience, they get the boring work of milling lumber done the fastest possible way, and if you go the planer-thicknesser route as I do then you can get both a planer and a jointer in one machine - one cutterhead, one motor, one footprint, one combined cost way less than separate machines. The only downsides are the minute it takes to change configuration between jointing and thicknessing, and the fact that both machines break at the same time, though this is rare enough not to be a big deal. I suppose that in a two man shop, one could be jointing and the other thicknessing were the machines not combined, but it's not going to be a deal-breaker in most situations.
Everyone makes it seem difficult and time consuming. It's not. Not using a jointer does not add a single minute to my work. I've never used sleds, jigs, or wedges on my thickness planer.
Don't buy badly twisted stock. Even if you joint and plane it flat, you don't know what it will do in the future. Like most of you I hand select my stock. Pass on the crap.
Cut to rough length before milling. I can barely thickness an 8 foot board in my shop. If I can trim to a couple inches over finished length first, it makes my life easier. And a board with a wee bit of twist has half a wee bit if you cut the board in half.
If I need to knock a high corner or two off with a jack plane, I do. It doesn't need to be pretty. It just needs to sit flat on the planer bed to smooth the opposite side. A few strokes with a jack plane is faster than jointing a face.
Cup is no issue. Put the cupped side down for the first few passes. No need to joint at all. But I pass on really badly cupped boards at the lumberyard.
That's what I do, in a nutshell. If you work in a commercial shop, everything is different. But for a hobby woodworker, a jointer is not a necessity at all.
I agree - most of the time I don't bother with the jointer. Just for fun, I tried running a chunk of Wenge (wifey is getting MP's tea box for Xmas) through the thicknesser first - even though it was a decently flat piece to begin with, it still came out with a wee twist in it. The jointer sorted that out in no time.
That having been said, were it not for this post, I would never have put the wood on a reference surface and would have called it good. It would have been absolutely fine for the project.
Lacking a big jointer so far, I don't joint long pieces - I do as you do, get the best I can and planer them.
As a hobby worker I have a 8" Bridgewood jointer as well as a 3 HP Bridgewood table saw and use them as necessary to prep wood for my projects. Typically I make a variety of tables or other items that require joining long boards together. I usually buy rough cut lumber or get donations from friends that can be quite unusual. The latest was a 12 x 2 x 36 quilted soft maple slab.
I also use non typical local hardwood like hickory, locust, and sycamore for my projects and have zero interest hand prepping any of this stuff for joining. Even with power tools I have issues with knots and grain direction change to get good edges.
The soft maple slab was slit in half on the band saw and the sections turned into potato chips from residual stress. The only use for these pieces will be charcuterie boards, flattened with scrub, jack, and jointer planes along with a belt sander. Almost done.
To summarize my comments, it all depends on what you want to make, with what, and your resources like space and money. Individual decisions.
I was a bit confused by a comment above about the jointer being one of the most dangerous tools in the shop. I take very thin cuts, keep my hands away from the blade, and use appropriate push and hold tools. I have never had kick back from a jointer like I have on a table saw. Which I treat with great great respect.
Kudos to those folks that prefer hand tools. It’s great to see that tradition still being followed, hat’s off to them.
I’m too impatient, and/or lazy, to develop the skills required for much of that.
So, from what I’ve read here, an 8” (min) jointer is in my future. I have a clearer understanding now how some folks use a thickness plainer only to flatten both faces, and square up the edges on the table saw. And I think I’ll give that a try, at least until I find a good used jointer.
As for the Big Box stores having straight/flat/square lumber, that’s never been my experience. Their stuff may come home in good shape, but if it sits in the shop for any length of time, 75% needs to be worked. It may be because they sell so much of it, so often, it never gets a chance to dry out. Thanks for all the input, much appreciated
Ed
As was said above, a jointer is not necessary, I also got by without one for years. After I got one, I barely used it. Once I changed the manner of work I was doing it made more sense to start using it so now I do.
The one thing that really hasn't been expressed are the limitations. Jointers (and planers) are dependent on grain direction. This can throw a wrench into the works when milling down a piece where as other tools like the table or bandsaw are not. You might have to re-think the order of how to get things done when this occurs
I can not buy all the dream tools at once so when I get the chance, I buy or upgrade one and it always opens up new possibilities as well as make the work faster and better. The jointer I purchassed 5 years ago falls in that categogy , so does the Laguna bandsaw with 14 inches resaw capacity and last month the 20 inches spiral cutterhead planer.
I am currently finishing 3 ‘’ carvings ‘’ from a poplar stump where I used my 8 inch jointer to help bring sufaces up to 20 inches wide straight and true. I would make a deep pass on both sides by removing the guard and clean up the 4 inches center ridge left with a router. I even jointed flats on end grain by using thin cuts. Spiral cutterhead tools do not mind grain direction if you feed slowly in thin passes.
The jointer has become an essential tool in my shop, saves me a lot of sanding and prepares the wood straight and square for subsequent operations.
If I had a dream tool, it would be a 20" spiral thickness planer. I'd never fit one in my downstairs shop. I'm tempted to put one in my unheated garage. But then I'd need another dust collector out there to go with it.
I just changed my dust collector to suit the 20 inch planer, another dream tool !
Will 20" be enough? Is any size ever quite enough?
I've ordered a 16" behemoth planer/thicknesser and I'm worrying about how I'm going to get the mountain of steel off it's packing pallet...
This is the poplar stump that I « carved »using first a chainsaw last year and last week the jointer, the router and a 3 X 24 belt sander, it represents a sail and will be in my first exhibition opening Thursday in Montreal.
Congratulations! Plus one on a link to the exhibition.
If there is a link to the exhibition please post it here. I'd love to have a look!
It’s a joint exhibition with my wife who does paintings, this is her link and my shop Facebook page. We do not have a virtual exhibition site, I will have a dozen items, bowls and 3 carvings from this poplar stump alongside her 50 paintings.
https://www.annefrancoisebelanger.com/evenements?fbclid=IwAR2A5JP8N9AdiVC5QOgMa4TgGjwS8OrTM8wheJZpmGuzQTicrw7W9FFSG_k
https://m.facebook.com/pg/Atelier-de-Pierre-106509264601940/posts/?ref=bookmarks&mt_nav=0
Canada's only exhibitionist couple. Scandal!!
Gulfstar- that is beautiful. I love Poplar, but more because it's easy to work with, I had no idea a Poplar stump could be so figured, intriguing and eye popping.
I also love the design of your sculpture, very cool, congrats on your first exhibition!
Great job!
Seconded
As to the question on using jointer originally posted by edchase. I don't own one, wish I did, but make do with a planer, router and hand planes, more so on the hand planes as it's quicker for the limited milling I do.
For my hobbyist requirements, that solution works just fine albeit time consuming. A jointer is on my wish list, and if I find a smoking deal on Craigslist, it's probably my next purchase.
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