My Ridgid jointer manual says I should not plane (i.e. face joint) wood which is less than 3/4″ thick. It says the wood may get caught under the safety guard and cause kickback or some other dangerous situation.
Do other people follow this rule?
Another question I have is regarding the planing/jointing of small and narrow pieces in general. How small is safe? What are the recommended techniques?
Thank you all in advance for your input.
Replies
It's relative to experience. Use the paddles to push stock. If it feels dangerous don't do it. An experienced user can do more with any machine. Then there is the complacent factor. Accidents happen to beginners and seasoned users. The seasoned users can get complacent and rush or skip procedures.
Typically, you can plane down to about 3/16" without a problem. If this is a concern for you, then take a piece of 3/4" or even 1/2" material that is flat, such as particle board, mdf or melamine and put your piece on top of that and run it through. This will also help prevent blowout too. I've planed down to about 1/8" doing this.
Also, make sure your pieces are at least 12-15" long or you'll be asking for problems
...then take a piece of 3/4" or even 1/2" material that is flat, such as particle board, mdf or melamine and put your piece on top of that and run it through. This will also help prevent blowout too. I've planed down to about 1/8" doing this.
Uh, we're talking a jointer not a thicknesser....
Dano"Form and Function are One" - Frank Lloyd Wright
So you attach the wood to be joined to the thicker board and run it through the jointer face down. I do this regularly on my jointer, and can work with thicknesses down to about 1/8".
omg. I'm sorry! I was tired when I wrote that. I believe the word DUH comes to mind.
::Embarrased::
"Another question I have is regarding the planing/jointing of small and narrow pieces in general. How small is safe? What are the recommended techniques?" Be extremely careful with small pieces! whether they are thin, narrow, short or God forbid all three.
I've seen it stated that you shouldn't joint any piece shorter than 11". Not sure why 11 is the magic number, but I follow this rule (mostly).
Anything that is narrow or thin presents great danger to your fingers. I always use push blocks when I face joint. Recently, I found myself, even when using a push block, putting one of my fingers over the edge of the board. Yikes! Do not do this! One of our members lost the tip of a finger (or 2?) a couple years ago jointing thin stock, and he was very experienced.
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
If the guard on your jointer is that high over the blades and tables it's poorly designed. Take a close look at it (unplugged please and with the cutter rotated so that the blades are covered by the tables) and see if you can adjust it to where it just clears the out feed table and blade. Making sure that if you push down on the top of the guard it doesn't hit the blades and still swings freely. With the guard as low as it can be safely set you'll be able to see how thin the wood can be before it could slide under. If it can't be lowered, then shape and fit a piece of softwood and epoxy it to the underside to close the gap.
As to the width of wood that can be jointed. As long as it is stiff enough to stand and be pressed against the fence. It can be, with care, jointed.
The minimum length that is joinable is about an inch. BUT YOU MUST CLAMP IT TO A LONGER BOARD. (Capitalized to emphasize.) In order to repair broken arms on antique dinning chairs where they attached to the chair backs (split from nails or oversize screws etc) we clamped them to the face of some wide scrap, 2 or more feet long. A 2x6 for example. Taking as many passes as needed to get a flat surface. Then we could glue on a small block to the arm and reshape it when the glue dried. It's the safest way to handle short lengths because your hands are well clear and you have complete control. One more caution. Clamp the work when possible so that the wood 'trails' into the knives and not with the pointed end forward. It won't be grabbed and pulled down into the cutter.
Keep reading and learning about using your machines. If something gives you the shivers. Then don't do it.
If the pieces are small, don't use a powered jointer unless you want to have problems. Now that I have a pretty good handle on hand planing, unless I have a lot of stock to flatten or joint, I won't bother to pull out the powered one. If the parts are too small, I won't consider using power. I like my fingers the way they are. I made a chute board from scrap lumber and I think it took about 15 minutes. Much safer, IMO.
That being said, there are ways to flatten/joint small pieces using a jig for the particular operation when the time to make the jig is justified by a large number of parts needed.
Attached is a drawing -- not to scale -- of the pusher I use on my jointer. Note that it can be made almost any size out of scrap.
Opens with Adobe's PDF (I hope).
Personally, I wouldn't face joint anything much smaller than a peice of paper. Anything smaller I'd attach to a flat piece of MDF and run it through the planer.
Being honest, quesne,
I'm a trade cabinetmaker and I've never given the minimum thickness to safely run over a jointer a thought - I pulled out my training manuals and couldn't see it in there either, but the manufacturer's recommendation makes sense - I'll keep it in mind.
I was jointing 1/2" square billets a week or two ago (half scale prototype hall tables,) and I wouldn't go much thinner - with sharp blades, the billet was flexing when the blades hit it (due to the flex, I also had to use a jointer push block and push only with downward pressure at the very rear of the billet at very slow speed to allow a straight surface to be produced.)
At 1/2" square, the wood has a fair bit of flex as well and is easy to joint out-of-flat if you put the tiniest bit of pressure in the wrong place. I'd stick with the manufacturer's recommendation for a combination of practical and safety reasons.
I'd suggest that you look at the UK equivalent of your OSHA for guidance on how to run machinery - here's a link to their handbooks/safe working manuals.
http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/woodindx.htm
The UK term for a jointer is an overhand surface planer - you'll find details of the pushblock similar to the one I use, as fig 8 in the HSE advice on manually fed planers.
Note that all cabinetmakers in the UK must be running outside of HSE guidelines as they specify that the outfeed table be level with the cutting circle of the blades, when, as you are aware, the outfeed table needs to be a couple of thou below the cutting circle of the blades.
But, on the whole, the HSE safe working advice is valid and useful/considered advice, reflecting practical experience and trade training in the UK.
It's not only possible, but fairly easy to thickness down to 1/8" - never stand in front of a thicknesser (US -> planer) as if the wood shatters, the blades will throw it back out back at you. This happens about every 6 months with me (but because I stand to one side, not a problem), usually if there's a knot near the end of the timber you're working on. For the same reason, never look into the feed end of a running thicknesser.
I wouldn't personally joint anything smaller than 12" on my jointer (it's a small 12" unit) On the larger jointers such as an 18" jointer this would be suicide.
The best advice is never to put your hands within 6" of the blade, preferably as far away as possible. [edit: FG - this is the 'reason' for the 11", there's another rule of thumb that says min length = 5 times throat opening, which is another similar number - I'd look to keeping hands min 6" from blade]
Cheers and happy reading,
eddie
edit: Forgot to say that attaching a piece of wood to another to joint it won't work - even though the wood may be flat when you run it over the jointer, it will distort when you remove it from it's backing piece
Edited 1/15/2006 4:29 am by eddiefromAustralia
I think all Mgrs. go to a extreme on what is printed.. Ya know LAWYEZRS! and such..
As posted.. Use the paddles.. Not sure how safe 'thin' is though..
Has a one of yours and hardly ever use it under 3/8 inch (0.375 inch) OR (9.425 mm) fer the over the ocean folks!
Kickback can always be a problem.. Like someone else posted.. If it does not feel safe.. DO NOT DO IT!
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