Replies

1. 
   SCFrankland | Mar 29, 2003 12:11am | #1

   You can but the main question is why.  I have jointed plywood on my jointer for some jigs that I was making but a good saw blade is a better option.  I find that ply wood does not plane good because because it has both end grain and straight grain.  The end grain always tears and the glue is hard on the cutting edge.

   Scott C. Frankland

2. 
   Jamie_Buxton | Mar 29, 2003 12:56am | #2

   Yes, you can edge-joint plywood.  I do it sometimes.  However, it eats the knives.  Specifically, the end-grain layers in the plywood quickly dull the knives.   I've never really understood why this is so, but I can clearly see the effect after jointing only ten feet of plywood.

1. 
   Curtis | Mar 30, 2003 02:59am | #5

   I Agree

   What I was tought, On how do I join plywood on a jointer? The anser is with Someone elses jointer!

   :)

   I use a Forest saw blade,And it works Great!

   C.A.G.

3. 
   forestgirl | Mar 29, 2003 10:14pm | #3

   Yes, you can, or you can use a straight edge and a router bit, which in the long run might be cheaper than using your jointer knives.  For smaller pieces, of course, the tablesaw's fine.

   I've used the jointer on Baltic Birch plywood specifically for getting a precise 90* angle for jigs and clamping blocks, when I needed to take only a tiny fraction off the edge.  Otherwise, I'd probably use a router.

   As far as the end-grain tearout is concerned, you can get around this by jointing to the middle of the piece, stopping there, pivot the other edge to the front, and joint to the middle.  You should get little or no tearout with that method.

   forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl   ;-)

4. 
   forestgirl | Mar 29, 2003 10:23pm | #4

   Ed, I picked up the book Popular Science  Complete Book of Power Tools a by R.J. Cristoforo, at an auction last fall.  It is a great!!!!! book, and one I'd specifically recommend for someone in your situation.  Here's a link to the Amazon inventory.  It's expensive new ($42), but it looks like they have used ones in the $15 range.  If I'd gotten this one early on, it would have saved many dollars in other, specific-tool-dedicated books.

     http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/ref=dp_sr_00/103-0317636-5059808

   forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl   ;-)