6" jointers and 12" planers?

[rob]

In the somewhat near future I would like to start finishing my own lumber and I think I need both a planer and a jointer (and probably a band saw as well). I always thought jointers were just for edging, but after much reading I see that to finish your own boards, you need to square up and edge and a face on the jointer before thicknessing, correct?

If this is the ways things are done, that means that there is no way to prepare boards more than 6" in width? If thats true, why would one ever need a 12-13" planer when you are always running boards 6" or less? Or do you glue up your wider panels and then thickness them? Just wondering about the whole process.

Thanks for any info. Rob

p.s. Is there any reason to have just a jointer or just a planer then, or are they always kind of used as 'a set'? If there is much use separately, which would be most useful to buy first?

[DarylRos]

Pretty much. Once you go beyond 8" for a jointer, you are getting into big bucks.

Some of the European companies make great combination machines, also for big bucks: MiniMax, Felder, Laguna, Hammer (from felder). They all start with 12" jointers and work up from there.

[Caractacus Potts]

You can get by with just a planer if you have to. If you have a board with a lot of twist or warp, you can shim the bottom to get a good reference face. (this is also handy when you have wide boards that you don't want to cut down to fit the jointer) You can also plane glue-ups, etc. made up from narrower boards.

[Mike G]

Actually it's joint the face then the edge. That first face is the important one. Can't get a good edge without a good face to put against the fence.

You can get large jointers also if your pockets are deep enough but, generally, panels are just glued up from narrower stock. There is also, of course, the premium that you have to pay for really wide boards. Being scarce, and getting scarcer, extra wide stock usually has a premium tacked on.

[Tom Kohlman]

Rob

You "face" one side on the jointer since any spring in the wood tends to survive the planer. And doubtful you will ever achieve a uniform thickness on a board if you rely solely on a jointer as the pressure exerted comes from you and can vary as the board moves across the tables. Hence the answer to your latter question is that you should have both if you can afford it.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

That would be good, but you can take one step at a time.

Because after you glue them up to 12" you can run them through again to take out any imperfection of the glue up.

I have a 13" planer but no jointer yet. Why? I can buy lumber that is skip planed and then I finishit to the dimensions I need. I can buy wide boards like that also. In fact, my supplier will give me a straight edge also. Eventually I'll have the jointer, but you don't need both right off.

I get to almost the final thickness, then glue, then finish plane.

Others will make the case for the jointer and no planer to start. Still others will tell you to buy a set of hand planes instead of a machine. Not a question of right or wrong, just differing approaches that will work.

If you get a planer, I strongly recommend a dust collector. Ed [e-mail]

> Thanks for any info.

[Chris Merrill]

Several here have mentioned running wider boards through the thickness planer with shims in order to 'joint' (flatten) a face. This gets around the 6" jointer limitation.