Hello again !
Well I tried my first joiner job. Making a stand for my Delta Portable Planer. Using 4/4 x 6″ wide oak. I cut all the pieces to size then, by sighting down the boards found which side was concaved and ran that side down the joiner until I heard blade contact for the full run. Did 8 pieces this way and all seemed to go well. When I was through Iwas examining how flat the boards acually were….not bad. I had one of the 8 that still had a slight curve and decided to get it better!! When I attempted to run it over the joiner knives it stuck at about 2″…couldn’t push it forward. I backed off and tried again with the same results so I stopped everything and examined the board. The board was angled across it’s width…thinner on one edge than on the other!!! Upon further examination I noticed that this tapper continued down the board for about 12″. with the tapper being the worst at the very end. I’m assuming this is why I couldn’t push the board forward but what I don’t know is WHAT WENT WRONG!!…The 7 other boards seemed fine.
Replies
Ed,
This is caused by a jointer's inability to make parallel sides. The other 7 boards you did are probably not parallel but are so close that you are unable to see it. If measured with a very accurate device, you find they differ from one edge to another. A jointer is designed to give you a flat or joined edge or face. Once you get one side perfectly flat, you run the board through the planer with the jointed face as the reference side; in other words it goes on the table and the uncut side hits the knives.
Think of it another way. If you just used the jointer to flatten the sides of the board, the narrow edges, would they be parallel? Probably not. That's why you always joint one edge and reference it against the fence of the table saw to make the parallel side.
Hope this helps. I know what you've done because I did the same thing about 15 years ago when I first got a jointer but didn't have a planer!
Kell
Hi Kell,
Thanks for the help. I'm still a little confused though because I was only trying to flatten one side in preperation for the planer....which by the way I am about to use also for the first time. I ran these boards only on one side trying to get as flat as possible. These pieces were cut down to 30" from a 10' length that was surfaced on two faces and one edge with one edge rough. Is it possible that the original 10' length was not parrallel toward one end?
Ed
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