I made a stupid mistake and bought some rough wide boards (10 to 12 inches) that are too wide for my 6 inch jointer. I should have ordered S2S lumber, not this rough stuff. I have a 13 inch planer. The boards need jointing so I know that just planing won’t get them square. Here are the options I came up with:
1) rip the boards then glue them back together after squaring them (I heard of that but I question if I can joint the edges well enough to make the seam disappear; 2) invest in hand planes; 3) ask for advice on this forum; 4) I live in the Calif. central valley so it would be a 4 hour round trip to take the wood to some facility that can surface two sides – assuming one exists in the LA area.
Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks, Tom.
Replies
Another option is to build a planer sled that will enable you to face-joint your boards through your planer (i.e., up to 13" wide).
See Keith Rust's article titled "Flatten Boards without a Jointer" (FWW #175 and online).
Otherwise, the rip, joint, and glue option is pretty commonly recommended.
Edited 12/4/2007 1:31 pm by GettinTher
Tom,
S2S lumber isn't really flat, or can't be depended on to be.
Even if you do a perfect job of jointing the boards, which is not at all difficult, the grain match could be "lost" depending on the grain pattern of the board; cathedral patterns are more prone to this than quarter saw/stripe pattern.
I would say go the hand plane route, it will allow you to surface any board and the the resulting skill will open all kinds of new possibilities. If the boards are long, the planer sled might be the way to go. For me, it does get difficult to hand plane boards much longer than about 5 feet, despite my arms spanning about 6'5".
I see wide boards as too precious to rip down just to fit a machine.
Rob Millard
americanfederalperiod.com
Depending on what you are going to do with these boards, you might be surprised at what you can get away with without jointing first. My jointer sleeps under a blanket for years at a time between uses!
;-)
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA
Edit: If these boards do need to be flattened first, I'd take them to a millwork shop for jointing rather than ripping them. Wide boards are worth a few bucks extra.
Edited 12/4/2007 2:30 pm ET by MikeHennessy
The answer probably lies in what you plan to do in the future.
(1) If this is the only time you ever plan on buying something >6" take it to a mill.
(2) If you plan on doing it occasionally, build a sled.
(3) If you like working with pieces >6", and you will, buy a bigger jointer or get a few hand planes.
(3a) A bigger jointer is wonderful, but you won't be happy until it is the size of your planer. (Mind you that after your drop $X,000 on that jointer you won't be happy with a 13" planer, regardless.)
(3b) Hand planes will open up a new world for you, will give you great satisfaction, and will never leave you worried about such a problem again, even when you decide to make that 20" wide coffee table with live edges that your wife wants...or is that mine?
You only need a plain vanilla bench plane, with a reasonably sharp blade, to get one face of the board roughly flat, it doesn't need to look good or be perfectly flat, just close.
Once the one side is hand planed, pass the board through your planer with the hand planed side down. When the machined planed surface is planed flat, flip the board over and take a pass or two to clean up the hand planed side.
John White, Yestermorrow School
Tom,
You don't need to hand plane the boards until they are entirely flat if you don't want to. You just need to get one side flat so that you can run it through the planer without it wobbling and causing the workpiece to shift. If you're going to buy hand planes to do the job, you will save yourself a lot of work if you get a scrub plane to hog off the bulk of the material and then a jack or jointer plane to smooth it out enough to go through the planer.
Jim
i think it does all depend on what you are doing with the boards. if they are going to be something that is 8' or longer, i would get build a sled for my planer or pay a cabinet shop to mill them for you. if they are going to be shorter, then go to town with hand planes and get yourself a great workout.
I think I lost 10 pounds the first time I hand planed a board flat. it was 16" wide and 3' long. I still have nightmares about it.
Tom,
All of the advice given so far sounds good to me. However, you did not mention the size of the finished pieces for your project so I am going to offer this suggestion. Lay out your parts on your stock leaving a little extra for milling. Rough cut all your pieces to these over size dimensions. Then mill to final dimensions. If you have stock that is still wider than your jointer, then all of the above suggestions are good ones. It is easier, however, to work with stock that has already been cut down to shorter pieces required for the project. Again, I assumed here that you did not need the full length of your stock for the job.
I like the sled idea for your planer. There is a good video on the FWW site demonstrating a very effective one. Give us more information on the project, we could probably offer more.
Bob, Tupper Lake, NY
My lumber supplier, who mills boards for those who want it, removes the safety cover and joints wide boards by alternating left-side right-side. He finishes the job on a 20" planer. He does this day in day out, so perhaps he's developed some extra skill at it. I've never tried it myself. Incidentally, he tells me there's a 2 week backlog for finished lumber, so there must be a few satisfied customers.
Jim
I frequently do what your lumber supplier does. I have an 8 inch jointer and a 20 inch planer. I remove the safety cover on the jointer and alternate which half of the face I'm passing. You will get a small rabbet running the length of the board since only half is passing over the knives. I sneak up on removing the rabbet by making my last few passes with as light of a cut as my jointer will allow. You may see a 1/32nd ledge running down part of the board's middle but it's so insignificant that when I put it through the planer, my board doesn't wobble. I get rid of the rabbet in the planer by simply flipping the board over for the last pass. I have used this procedure many times. Way easier than hand planing. It's really all about getting a wobble free surface for the planer, not a cosmetically perfect surface, since the last planer pass takes care of that. Make sense?Paul
Makes sense to me. I'll be prepping some rough maple tomorrow or Monday (no sense alienating the neighbours on the weekend) so I'll risk a board or two. I've been doing a lot of jackplaning wide boards to cut back on planer noise, but it's hard on the wrists.
Thanks, Jim.
Here're some old threads that address the problem
http://forums.taunton.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=fw-knots&msg=3050.1
http://forums.taunton.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=fw-knots&msg=2153.1&maxT=10
ne sutor ultra crepidam
I bought a MiniMax combo jointer/planer so I could have a 12" jointer - I love it.
BUT - for years I worked with a 6" Jet jointer to prepare for my 12" planer. Splitting the boards and re-gluing them was never a problem. In 95% of the cases you would be hard-pressed to find the "grain break" on the reglued plank. But the choice of "grain match areas" is critical. And, of course on some materials a good match can't be found.
Even with 12" capabilities I find myself puzzling over the best way to glue up to get 18" or 24" material. Look at your material carefully and ask yourself if the finished project will require material greater than 12" wide.
Frosty
"I sometimes think we consider the good fortune of the early bird and overlook the bad fortune of the early worm." FDR - 1922
I have a 6" Ridgid jointer and I frequently buy rough 12" wide stock because I like the grain and/or because my projects require it. As a result, I joint boards in my Delta 13" planer all the time.
It is much easier than people make it out to be:
1. A simple piece of MDF or 3/4" ply makes up the sled (mine is 13"x42"). It can be used as-is, unembellished (i.e. cleats and leveling screws are NOT required, but you can add them if you want).
2. Simple shims and a little hot glue support your workpiece and hold it to the sled.
3. Plane the first face in your thickness planer. Your workpiece is now face jointed S1.
4. Remove the shims and hot glue (very easy, it breaks off quick and clean)
5. Flip the board and plane the second face without the sled. Your workpiece is now S2. The rest can be done as you normally would on your 6" jointer and table saw.
Tom,
Make a sled for your planer.. a planer is just an upside down jointer. I use a variety of stuff to make my sleds.. I had a nice flat piece of 3/4 inch thick partical board that Used untill I stored it improperly and it warped I've used other boards, and plywood etc.. use trim head screws to hold the board flat and stable
I have constructed several versions of planer sleds to work with my 15 inch Powermatic planer and have never gottten them to work satisfactorily. One was a piece of 3/4 MDF with a dado to hold a "clamp n guide". Another was a piece of 3/4 ply with a lip at one end and small wedges.
The added weight of the sled plus the board seems to create excess pressure on on the rollers so that the board wants to tip down on the outfeed side, creating snipe (which doesn't appreciably occur otherwise on a typical 5/4 or 6/4 board.) I have tried a supplemental outfeed roller support, but this is very difficult to exactly level. How have others dealt with this? THanks.
Jay
JayS
infeed and out feed rollers can be simple to construct but I can't measure stuff and have it come out worth a darn..
So I build reasonably sturdy legs and then set the height of the outfeed/infeed rollers by stretching a string line taut between the start and end of them both. it should just barely kiss the bottom of the planer.
What I've found is that I need to hold the board with trim screws. Clamps don't work for me the vibration always seems to loosen them larger headed screws would put the blades at risk.
Thanks all for your comments. I was asked by a previous poster what I was going to build and to be honest, I am not sure yet what is next. It might be a dresser or it could be a small coffee table.I was looking for more information on planer sleds - I am not visualizing how the set screws work to hold down the piece. On another website somebody mentioned that they place masking tape over their sled and hot glue the piece of wood to the sled and then are able to somehow pry the board loose from the sled - it seems this is the fastest way to build and implement a sled but I was hoping others could comment on that. The sled featured in FWW 175 is interesting but if clamps won't hold a piece secure I am not sure how this design would work. I have not seen the video. Right now, based on the comments I am leaning towards trying the sled option and if that does not work - invest in some handplanes. -Tom
Tom,
I put some sacrificial vertical boards up and the run the trim screws in sideways just enough to get a good grip
It's good to gather the information and to give the process(es) you choose a whirl to get them more clear.
But make sure to wait for an actual project before face jointing/planing your lumber. That way you can do these critical proceesses (jointing and thicknessing) on rough dimensioned pieces.
Take care, Mike
Hi Tom:
The sled setup is real simple and easy to do.
1. Cut a piece of 3/4 inch plywood or MDF to the length and width you need. The length should be a bit longer than your longest workpiece. The width should be just shy of your planer's capacity. You want the sled to slide effortlessly across the planer bed as it you were planing it.
2. Just as you do when jointing on a jointer, check your workpiece for cupping (usually there is a little). Place your workpiece on the sled with the cup side down (exactly the same as you would on a jointer table).
3. Press on each edge of the workpiece to see if it rocks at all. Slide one or two shims under the rocking edges. Press on all the edges again and verify that it no longer moves or rocks. Make sure your shims don't hang over the edges of the sled.
4. Put 4 or 5 sizeable spots of hot glue along each edge of the workpiece. Put a few small spots of hotglue on each shim.
5. Wait for the glue to cool and pass the sled-workpiece through the planer like you would any other workpiece. When you have a fully planed surface, your workpiece is at S1!
6. Remove your workpiece from the sled by cracking off the blobs of glue with a chisel. You are done with the sled. Everything else is done with the planer, TS and jointer.
are you gluing the workpiece to the sled, as well as gluing the shims to the workpiece and to the sled? Thanks
[are you gluing the workpiece to the sled, as well as gluing the shims to the workpiece and to the sled? Thanks]
Yes. A few blobs or short beads of glue on each end of the workpeice (especially the trailing end) keep it from sliding back against the force of the planer knives. A few blobs or short beads along the edge keep it from moving laterally.
The shims require a tiny amount of glue, if any. Pressure from the rollers typically keeps them in place, but it's good to tack them down.
Edited 12/6/2007 3:51 pm ET by quesne
I just wanted to say that Quesne's method works beautifully. I've also used the sled made according to the FWW article, I think by Rust. Both work fine, but I like that the hot glue method that does not involve running any metal through the planer. One detail I'd add to Quesne's description is that you want a very flat surface to put it on while you setup shims for the cut. You don't need a rigid torsion box to run through the planer, but you do need to be sure it's flat during the setup.
Hi Tom, I use my 6" jointer to to flatten material > 6" and < 11". Here's the process:
1. Remove jointer gaurds, and any stop pins (as if you were setting up to do rabbeting).
2. Take several light passes at slightly greater width than half the board width.
3. Rotate the board end for end and joint the other half of the face. This should give you a relatively flat board, length wise.
4. Put it through the thickness planer with joined side down.
5. Flip the board and plane the jointed face flat. Voila, done! Now you can joint the edges.
Nathan
I use that same method to flatten stock wider than my jointer and it does a great job. I first learned of it from an article in PW detailing the procedure. It is, however, not without its risks. Since the guard is removed, the cutterhead will be exposed, but only as the tail end of the board clears the infeed table. Therefore, anyone using this method SHOULD be using some type of push stick, and SHOULD know exactly where their fingers are. Of course, one should do these things regardless!
Another approach is to use your router. Fasten two flat boards slightly thicker than the material you want to flatten onto a flat surface such as a bench top. Then mount your router to a panel at least twice as long as the distance between the outer edges of these two boards. With some hot glue or double-side carpet tape stick your stock to the flat surface between these boards, shiming as necessary to hold it steady, and then knock down any high spots with the panel-mounted router using a wide flat-bottom bit. You need only to remove enough high spots so that the material will lie flat when you next run it through your planer with the prepared face down.
Using this technique you can flatten a board wider than your planer will accept, leaving only some final sanding to produce a finished panel.
Edited 12/7/2007 12:49 pm ET by woodhacker
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