Those of you who have experience in these things, what’s your opinion on rabbeting with a jointer?
- How safe is it;
- why use a jointer rather than a dado blade or rabbeting bit;
- how long can your board be relative to the length of the jointer table;
- how does the quality of the rabbet stack up against rabbet made with other methods?
forestgirl — you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can’t take the forest out of the girl 😉
Replies
>> why use a jointer rather than a dado blade or rabbeting bit;
It's always available, doesn't require changing blades.
You can make wide rabbets, up the the width of your cutter. Also possible on the TS or router, but maybe not as easy.
Doing it with the router is going to require some kind of setup to guide the cut, whereas it is all built in on the jointer.
>> how long can your board be relative to the length of the jointer table;
My opinion is that the board should be no more 50% longer than the shorter of the infeed or outfeed table, i.e. at least 2/3 of the board should fit on the shorter table. But that is distinctly a minority opinion.
Any comments on safety? I have some very vague memory about someone being adamantly against using a jointer for this purpose, but it's very vague.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
I've done more metal working and hand tool woodworking than power woodworking. Most of what (I think) I know about using power tools comes from 15 of years reading FWW. My _opinion_ is that having the tool stationary and manually moving the work past it, like a TS or a jointer, is deeply unnatural. I much prefer a situation where I can immobilize the work, as in hand planing or on a vertical milling machine. I know several people who have jointed off various bits of thumb and fingers, and have heard of dozens or hundreds of others. I've never heard of anyone getting seriously hurt hand planing. Although I'm sure I will now. :) I also find the noise annoying, even when I wear hearing protection.
So, my comment on safety may not be very relevant to your needs, but I'll offer it anyway. I wouldn't use a jointer unless the only alternative was watching my little babies starve to death. If I had to use one, I would do whatever it took to get a fence that I could run a power feeder against.
Edited 6/13/2002 3:53:26 AM ET by Uncle Dunc
Do you set up the rabbet as an edge or face operation?
Jase--Is there a better way?
Jase, usually its a face operation. Heres a easy way to produce sparkling clean rabbits. First use your dado set with a sacraficial fence on your table saw to pre-cut the rabbit 1/16" shy of actual depth. Then set your Jointer for 1/32" cut and make two passes using the rabbiting procedure described in your manual. Since you're only taking a 32nd off at a time the edge tearout is not appreciable and the bottom of the rabbit is smooth as silk. Basically this is just about the same procedure as using a rabbiting plane. This thread got me going so I just had to try it. It does work.
Steve - in Northern California
P.S. It really helps if you square the board before.
Edited 6/14/2002 3:40:24 PM ET by Steve Schefer
Edited 6/14/2002 3:42:02 PM ET by Steve Schefer
If this is really addressed to me and not just a Prospero powered mischance, I assume you're referring to my assertion that you can do wide rabbets. I imagined it as a face operation, with emphasis on imagine. I've never heard of anyone cutting a real wide rabbet with any technique. I was able to imagine doing it on the jointer, but I couldn't manage to think of any application for it.
It's been 35 years since I spent any time with a jointer, but if I remember correctly, doing it as an edge operation would mean the bottom edge of the board would eventually bump into something on the side of the jointer.
Forest girl seems to have dropped me like a hot rock since I admitted I don't actually use a jointer. :) Probably a wise move. Glib and quick on the keyboard do not substitute for experience.
Edited 6/14/2002 4:02:21 PM ET by Uncle Dunc
I have used a jointer for wide rabbets on some wide custom maple window casing. The rabbets were approx 3" wide and 1/4" deep. Worked great, no problems. Took approx 1/16" each pass.
Oh, good! My brain still works. But now we're all curious. Do you do a wide rabbet edge down or face down?
I did it face down. Just set the fence to the width you want the rabbett to be and adjust depth with infeed table.
Awww, c'mon now, I'm not that fickle. Just got back in from working on my router fence, sort of a design-as-you-go effort. Band saw was being a bit finicky, but better now. Lovin' the info that's coming my way in this jointer thread.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
LOL, I'm suprised you havent completely disassembled that new jointer just so you could get it into your shop early. Admit it, you're thinking about it arent you.. ROFLOL
Steve - in Northern California
Edited 6/14/2002 4:25:49 PM ET by Steve Schefer
Who, meeeee? You should have seen me setting up the bandsaw a couple years ago, all by my lonesome. I learned some things about leverage, fer sure.
I need a laugh right now :-( Just found out one of my best (heretofore) customers bounced not one but three checks in my shop last week. Man am I'm peeeeevvvvved (the other word I thought of would be censo##d). Bwwwaaaah! Well, gotta get down there and meet the Friday afternoon crowd that will hopefully make up for that dent in my checking account.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Ohhh shoot... I hate that, but ya know, sometimes its not their fault. Well thats what my customers tell me. I've only had a couple that I couldnt collect. I had one guy that was always tight on money so I made them pay as they go. No billing and waiting. Well that went well until I took a chance and did a bunch of work for them and then they skipped town over night. For the life of me I could not figure out why they asked me to do the work when they had obviously planned the skip. It wasnt anything that they took with them. Fortunately it was all labor so all I lost was my time.
Steve - in Northern California
Edited 6/14/2002 5:56:37 PM ET by Steve Schefer
That last case you mentioned is pretty odd! My guy was on his second checking account in just a few months, and his account was closed 3 days after he wrote me the 3 checks (he actually bounced 4, which is about how many I've had bounce in my previous eight years, sheesh!). Just knowing him and his personality, I think he's kinda gone off the deep end. If I don't hear from him in the next few days, he's gonna be surprised when the police get my complaint on file. It's a small town, and he's well known by many residents, so he won't be hard to track down. forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Hi Jamie, yes it was pretty bad, I never recovered the money but I did recover my self respect. Pretty much makes a vaccum sound.. (they would have sensored "Sucks")
Steve - in Northern California
Oh cool I finally figured out how to get around the sensors.... LOL
Edited 6/14/2002 11:26:06 PM ET by Steve Schefer
I heard a Sandbox rumor that "sucks" has been de-censored. I had joined in on a thread about censoring and made a case for de-censoring since "bummer" (old drug slang) and "crap" were not censored, so the vacuum-sound-word should be de-censored also since it has a mundane meaning these days. I guess after I click on "Post" and "Continue" I'll find out if anything's changed LOL!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
I thought about it but havent done it yet. I do intend to give it a try since it seems pretty simple and the setup would free up the saw and speed production. When I try it I'll let you know how I feel about it. :~)
John
Forest Girl:
I use the jointer for rabbets. I don't know of any dangers, outside the usual ones, using this method. Obviously, know where your hands are in relation to the knives. I take a very small cut each time (a heavy sixteenth for a narrow rabbet) for the sake of safety, to be nice to my jointer, and to improve the quality of the cut.
Overall, I think that the jointer makes a decent rabbet; certainly cleaner than a dado blade. Like any other cutting operation, cut quality is dependent upon blade sharpness. Hey, if you don't think it is clean enough, finish the cut with your rabbet plane.
As far as how long a board the jointer can handle, if you would be comfortable jointing the board, you can rabbet it. You can always set up outfeed support. Just make sure your support is on the same plane as the outfeed side of the jointer.
The drawback to using the jointer for rabbets is that it is slow. As I mentioned earlier, I only take a little bit off at a time.
Good Luck
Kyle
Thanks, Kyle, I just picked up the jointer this morning and will be setting it up on Saturday morning. Reading through the manual (this is my first jointer experience :-) the only activity that seems frightening is the idea of making tapers on the jointer. Eeek!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Both rabbits and tapers are fairly easy on the jointer. Compared to the table saw, longer boards are easier to handle because of the long bed. It will generally be slower due to the multiple passes needed, but it won't kick back like a TS. On the other hand, wider boards are easier on the TS.
For doing many tapers I'd use the TS, and a jig. To easily do a few that don't have to be perfectly sized, I'll scribe a few marks and use the jointer. I've got a whole bunch of different push sticks, featherboards and hold-downs for the TS, but only 3 for the jointer. There's one long one that has space for two hands, and two short ones with rubber pads.
What part bothers you about tapers? You just need to start them out properly to avoid taking a hugh bite from one end.
Blade note--I had to sharpen mine often enough that I bought another set, from Freud. Found they stayed sharp much-much longer than the ones supplied with the jointer.
Gerry
Hi Gerry, thanks for the info! What kind of jointer do you have? I'm OK on extra blades -- even though I picked up the Jet jointer at a surplus outfit, the nice young man threw in 2 sets of extra blades. I'm just curious what type of blades you had that weren't as good as the Freuds.
With regard to tapering, I was just sitting on the ferry on the way home reading the description (minimal description at that) on how to do them and it sounded a little odd. I'll have to find a better outline on the procedure. No hurry though -- practice cleaning some scrap boards up first!
I hear jointing a short board can be kinda dangerous. Oh well, if it ain't one thing, it's another!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
After some research, I ended up buying the Reliant 6". That's a company where you want to avoid some tools, but can find others that are just as good as Jet/Delta for much less. I wouldn't advise others to do this, unless they or a friend are familiar enough to qualify the tool.
I also wanted one with large knobs and not lever arms for setting the cut height. That makes it much easier to judge just how much you're changing the cut. The particular blades you get are usually not labeled, and typically cheap ones. Don't know what the Jet jointer has, but the Jet-14 bandsaw comes with a junk blade.
Others here have discussed how long a board you can safely joint, and some seem to prep the work on a TS first. IMO, it's safer and easier the other way around. Jointing some 8-foot boards, either the TS or the jointer would require both infeed and outfeed support. The straightness of your edge is limited by the length of the reference guide, and the jointer bed is much longer than the TS is deep. I've done longer boards on the jointer, but 8-foot is about the limit for getting a good glue edge on a 6" jointer. OTOH, it will still do better on a 12-foot board than your TS.
Working with rough lumber, I'll first thickness plane to smooth but oversize. If both sides are very rough, I'll snap a line on one and use a bandsaw (that's the fastest and _safest_ way). Very often, though, one side is straight but rough, so I head to the jointer. Then to the TS to take the other side parallel (which only the TS can do). For a long board there may be saw marks, so I finish with a light cut on the jointer.
Af for the rabetting, I just use whichever one is most convenient for the size of the board and time of day. For a very wide rabbet, I wouldn't play around with the jointer, as it takes too long, and I'd rather save my knives for other things.
A short (or thin) board on the jointer is dangerous. In that case I'd use a router table, with featherboards. Alternately, a sled or fence-rider on the TS works if it's not too small.
Gerry
This has been an interesting thread. Overhand surface planers or US jointers as they're called can be extended much beyond the limits commonly assumed as the maximum for getting a straight face and the first edge square to that face. The machines looks pretty simple, but most people get foxed by the overhang of the timber at the infeed side hanging below the table at the start of the cut. That drooping overhang causes the timber to rise as it passes over the leading edge of the table and lifts the timber off the cutter and you end up simply reinforcing the concavity.
The (US) power jointer can be used just like a hand plane and a straight edge, but it takes some practise and understanding of the geometry of the tables to the cutting action. The old fashioned hand plane knocks off high spots, and the straight edge and winding sticks check your progress. With an overhand surface planer (jointer) the hand plane is the spinning cutterblock, and the straight edge and winding sticks is represented by the outfeed table. The infeed table is just a means of presenting the timber to the cutting edge, i.e., the rotating cutter. With practise you can learn how to take a nip off here, and a nip off there to generally even the material up prior to taking a full whole length swipe to even it all out. In truth, if your timber length is 10' and it's meant to be straight, then it's an almost certain guarantee that other members in the structure will compensate for any wibbley wobbley in that one piece. Furniture making is not engineering. It's a mixture of technical competence and 'art'.
As to the rebate/rabbet thing, I haven't seen or used such a facility on an overhand surface planer (jointer) for donkey's years, but I'd say it takes about 3 years of regular use to get a real feel for what such a machine can or cannot do, and to learn the limits of your skill. Slainte, RJ.RJFurniture
Sgian, I like the way you present the visualization of the jointer -- very helpful. So....are you going to share your technique for avoiding the mistake that leads to "reinforcing the concavity." Do you have a practiced hand-over-hand technique that you use? (Remember, I'm visualizing and imagining all of this -- the jointer is still in its crate, to be set up tomorrow.)
Thanks for joining in this thread!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Go clean up your shop..... No really, I'm sorry too many brews tonight... John doesnt drink. The hand over hand technique is something that, as I'm sure Sgian will agree, iyou will discover as you begin to learn to face plane. Essentially it is a matter of not pushing down the wood into the blades but instead, it is equalizing the current surface of the wood across the length of the jointer bed thereby taking off only the portion of the surface that is higher than the lowest point. If you look at the wood after the first pass you will see that only some of the surface has been removed. As you progress, you will notice that those areas begin to elongate until the entire piece of the wood is being surfaced. Once you make a pass that causes cutting to occur along the entire length, you have achieved flatness on that side. Now the challenge is to flip it over and surface the other side... Oh.. wait thats what the planner is for isnt it.
Good night.
Steve - in Northern California
Well, I frequently start a cut and lift off, and I frequently start a cut by 'dropping on'. Neither of these is ever described in books because it's dangerous if you don't know what you're doing, but I do it all the time on very long stuff. I always suss out which way the board is cupped, hollowed, and in winding, and which way the grain is running, and I make assessments, and then I'll take a bit off the left at the beginning of the board, and a bit off the right at the end of the board, or vice versa, or right front, and right back, even if it's 'against' the grain. I think it was Dave Wright that mentioned dropping the piece on a 'flat'ish' surface and pressing corners to see which way the board is running. Any twit can whack a piece of wood over a jointer and hope for the best. Jointers have long tables that can compensate for lack of knowledge.
Hand planes on the other hand require real skill because their length is restricted to about 27", unless you go back to about the 1500's where some planes were several feet long and pulled/pushed by drones with a guiding 'ploughmeister' at the back guiding the effort. But a short plane, eyesight, straight rdges, and winding sticks can flatten a 10' board if you know what you are doing. You can use a powered machine (jointer) just like a very short 27" plane to get a 10' board straight by nipping a bit off here and there to start with. The thing most people forget is that hand tools teach you all you need to know about woodworking. Electric, etc., powered machines are just an extension of the knowledge learnt by using hand tools. Electric tools tend to teach you very little about working wood close up-- it's mechanical and devoid of 'feel' or gut instinct, or something. Slainte, RJ.
RJFurniture
Edited 6/15/2002 1:39:28 AM ET by Sgian Dubh
Sgian, tucked away in a bookcase I found a c. 1953 book by R. J. DeCristoforo on "Power Tool Woodworking for Everyone." It actually has quite a bit of good information and several pics of working wood with a jointer. He addresses the various ways wood can get "deformed" (my word) and how to work the kinks out. His illustrations, along with all the explanations and tips I'm getting here, will really help. I'm sure I'll work my way gradually and carefully to the more advanced procedures.
I guess I'd tucked this book on the low-priority shelf because it's mostly filled with info related to the Shop Smith system, and just didn't look that relevant, but the jointer section is going to come in handy.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Sorry fg, I went out of the country for a while and missed your question. In reply, with long pieces the trick is to assess where the high spots are, or which way the piece is generally cast, meaning bowed in the length. If it's long, and badly cast and maybe two or three times the total length of the beds you will find that as the material not yet supported on the infeed table hits the leading edge of it the timber will be lifted as it passes over the cutter, perhaps even off the cutter. This can reinforce the concavity because the uncut stuff missed in the middle also drops off the end of the outfeed table which can cause the trailing edge to also be missed. You'll need to nibble bits off either end first so that when you take a full length cut the freshly 'nibbled off' ends don't lift the piece away from the cutters as they pass on and off the relevant table. Nibbling either end requires 'dropping on' and 'lifting off' the piece you are working on, and takes a good deal of practice to do with confidence and safety, but it's essentially the same technique as using hand planes to straighten a board. Comparitively short handplanes have been used successfully for centuries to get long pieces flat.
Similar techniques are used to get boards with two or three high spots somewhere close prior to making a full length pass on the machine, and warped pieces are treated in a similar manner. Then there are pieces that are cast, have more than one high spot and are warped too. I use a very long and fairly flat table saw and outfeed table set up to lay the board on to get a feel for the characteristics I mentioned. As I said before, it takes time to learn how to read a board, and how to use a jointer to best effect.
I've always found when I've taught furniture making that those who first learn how to plane timber flat using handplanes adapt to machine techniques quite well, but those that that learn machine woodworking techniques first tend to find it much harder to learn to read timber as a material and find it rather more difficult to adapt to hand techniques later. I think that's because hand techniques teach a lot about timber and its properties up close and slowly-- you can watch the grain slowly tear out as you pass the handplane against the grain-- and this knowledge can be put to use when approaching power tools, but it seems to be much harder for the beginner to see the result of such errors on power tools. Slainte, RJ.RJFurniture
Richard, that is by far the best explanation I have seen. Thank you and welcome back to the U.S. dollar.Steve - in Northern California
Thanks again, Sgian, for the thorough description. I fired the little puppy up for the first time last Monday (had to wait for the blade guard to arrive), and tried a couple of relatively small boards. So far so good. My hand-planes are so far from being ready to use that it may be awhile before I get to experiment with them, but I'll keep that advice in mind.
One question: planing without passing one's hands over the area of the cutterhead -- are people actually religious about this?? forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
fg, I generally don't pass my hands over the cutter head. for me it's both a safety thing, and a habit caused by the configuration of the tool in the UK where I trained and worked for most of my life. The machines in the UK have an an adjustable, but locked bridge guard as opposed to a swinging kidney shaped guard typical of US machines. In flattening the first wide face, the bridge guard is set the full width of the exposed cutter to just allow the piece to pass under it, and as such it makes it impossible to pass your hands right over the cutter, so you have to lift off the leading left hand as it approaches the guard, followed by placing it on the material already passing along the oufeed table whilst the rear right hand continues forward motion. The rear right hand follows a similar procedure a couple of seconds later whilst the left hand maintains forward motion. Lastly, the left and right hand are stepped over each other on the outfeed table side. It's a bit like walking on one of those rolling road exercise machines.
Forming the second edge square to the face means resetting the bridge guard down on the tables to completely cover the cutter, except for a gap next to the fence just wide enough for the pieces to pass through. Feeding the part follows a similar hand stepping procedure, unless the board is very wide, where I might pass my hands right over a line perpendicular to the cutter. Early habits die hard, and I still work this way, even though I currently use machines with US type swinging guards. On the other hand, I see no reason to change my procedure anyway, because with all types of guard configuration it's a comparitavely safe way to hand feed timber over a surface planer (jointer.) Slainte, RJ.RJFurniture
OK Sgian, if it's good enough for you, its wayyy good enough for me. I'll pretend that one of those bridge guards is on my machine. Usually, my instincts for safety are pretty good, but using the jointer the other day, I had to really force myself to not pass over the area above the cutterhead.
Well, time to go to work. Thanks!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Hi Gerry, thanks again for the detailed info. I decided on handwheels, rather than levers, which is one of the reasons the Jet rose to the top of the list.
I might be working with some 5/8" thick material (3.5" wide x 5/8" thick x 30"+ long) first thing. If I want to joint the edge, is there any reason it shouldn't be done on the jointer? Am making a fence for the router table, which will accomodate shims for jointing when that's the best choice.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
I made a similar router table fence. Face planed the 3.5" face, then jointed the edge square to that face. Perfect use for a jointer. Couple more thoughts here,
How to know when to stop? Well, you can carefully listen and hear the steady noise when the face or edge is flat. Or, you can scribble on it with a pencil, and stop when _all_ the pencil marks are gone. Running a dust collector and the jointer, I'm wearing hearing protection, so I go for the pencil.
Watch the grain when feeding. Make your last cut a slow and light one. Realize that a fast feed on a heavy cut may not be either flat nor square (try it sometime).
Also, before building something, have you checked out your jointer? Are you sure it's aligned?
Gerry
Couple more thoughts. To check alignment, make three tests. Take a board the width of your jointer and nearly as long as the bed. Face plane it smooth. Scribble all over with a pencil, then take a very thin and slow cut, and check. Now scribble again, reverse the board and repeat.
Take two boards, several inches thick. Face plane and joint one edge. put the edges on a flat surface, and see if the faces meet.
With two boards the length of your bed, joint one edge. lay them together on a flat surface. See if the edges can be brought together the full length, using only light finger presure. Do this twice, once at each end of the knives.
Caveat--it won't be perfect. How good you need it depends on what you're doing with it.
Gerry
Well, those tests will keep me busy for a few minutes. Got the stand on a mobile base, and the jointer set up, except they had left out the belt and blade guard when they packed it up, so won't get those until Tuesday. Darn! Monday's my day off, so was looking forward to playing with it.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Forest Girl,
So after all that agonizing, what did you get? I'm guessing the 6" Jet. The rabbetting "shelf" on my Jet 6" jointer looks way too small to safely support a board of any size. If you want to rabbett anything wide or long you'll have to set up outfeed/infeed tables, etc. Sounds like a hassle. Taking the blade guard off a jointer for any reason makes me nervous. I think it's just a leftover feature of old jointers before handheld electric routers were commonly available. Why not just get a decent multi-size rabbetting bit set? Then you can clamp the board down and plow away. That's got to be safer.
Hiya q-sawn. Yep I got the Jet 6". There's a Jet surplus store in Auburn, just a couple blocks from the Jet factory warehouse, so I went and picked it up yesterday. Funny thing, my Jesada rabbeting set is on its way via UPS as we speak! I'm sure I'll use it quite a bit (so to speak :-)
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
PS: Am I agonizing on-line?? Oh Dear, all that thinking didn't feel that painful LOL.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
As a confirmed Tool Junkie, I always agonize over my purchases for months, reading reviews, checking prices, blah blah blah. Naturally, I assume everyone else is the same. Tell me you didn't read every scrap of paper out there on jointers prior to purchase. Arrgghhh!
So, do you like your new toy?
Oh, that's what you mean by agonizing. Yes, I qualify, although the decision to get a jointer came rather quickly compared to other tool purchases. The new toy gets put together tomorrow morning, and then I have to rush off to work, so I probably won't actually get to play with it until Saturday night or Sunday morning. Monday's my day off, so by the end of the day, there should be lots and lots of straight wood laying around the shop!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Hi Dave, thanks for your input. I'm curious about jointing fairly long boards since I have some 6.5-footers (jointer is 47"). I'd not be attempting it early on, but would be interested to know what your technique is.
I had some experience tonight with forces in the spinning router bit. First time I've made a mistake in feed direction, oooooops!
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
fg,
Rabbeting on a jointer is easy and is just as safe as any other operation on the jointer. It's probably the fastest setup for rabbeting in the shop. For long boards, boards that are more than twice the length of the infeed or outfeed tables, use a support (as was mentioned before) like an adjustable roller stand. Setting these up takes a little practice, but you'll get the hang of it.
There is a point here to mention. The knives on the jointer are not sharp on the outer edges, so the wood fibers on the vertical part of the rabbet will not actually be sliced, they will be pulled or torn out. If the knives aren't sharp, and sometimes even when they are, there can be some tear-out at the point where the rabbet and the face of the board meet; depends on the wood, the depth of the cut etc. etc. I suggest that you ALWAYS make a test cut, I'm sure you would anyway, to see how it works for each particular circumstance. I often have to make rabbeted door jambs in all kinds of woods. These cuts are always 1/2" deep and vary in width from 1 7/16" to 2 1/8". Because this is such a large cut that will be exposed, I usually kerf the vertical edge on the table saw first. This helps in two ways. The outer edge of the jointer knives do not have to do any cutting, therefore no tear-out. It significantly reduces the workload on the jointer(and eases my workload as well). It's true that there is some saw blade marks to be cleaned up, but that is easy compared to the potential ruin of a piece of wood at this point.
Sorry about the length here, but I don't know how to shorten it...
One more thing. To rabbet, the knives must protrude from the cutterhead a small AND, as close as possible, equal amount. Your machine, if it's factory set, should already be set this way. If not, about .030" is adequate. If you don't do this, the cutterhead itself will rub on the vertical face of the cut and burn, vibrate and so forth.
Practice, have fun, and be safe! wb
WB, thanks for the great descriptions! No need to worry about length of post -- this kind of info is priceless for me. Sounds like this new machine is going to be even more useful than I originally anticipated.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Another thought, I had a board allmost 8" wide I wanted to Joint flat. So I took off the guard on my 6" Jet and planed that width of the board then matched the rest of it with a hand plane...works great since you have a flat surface to use as a guide when hand planing.
Be real careful without the guard on the planer!
Dave,
>Before I forget, on tapering, try it! I've gotten good results. The entire workpiece has to fit >on the tables throughout the operation for it to work. That may, for example, rule out some >table legs.
Why is that? I've tapered 8-foot boards to match a non-square living room wall without any problem. As the piece goes to more than twice the length of the bed, you're losing accuracy, but that's all. The overall challenge with tapering is technique, and that does become more difficult with longer boards, and takes a little practice. As you become more comfortable with longer tapers, you'll find it easier than it looks.
>You will have to push down hard at the start and end of the cut to keep the piece from >tipping under the weight of the overhanging end.
I suggest that you use infeed and outfeed support instead. If a free end of the board starts to shake, you could easily get a 2-4 mil ripple no matter how hard you push down. (Same applies to TS). Further, IMO any motor driven machine operation where you have to apply a large amount of hand pressure is a safety hazard.
You don't have to buy rollers here, but can make something for support. I made an adjustable support table (maybe 8x12) with a smooth buffed top, and that's often more useful than a roller.
Gerry
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