Jointing With A Router

[jegan]

I'm trying to get a straight edge on 9' long 4/4 maple. I haven't the money or room for a jointer in my garage so I need to make due without it. I have scoured the internet and this newsgroup for suggestions. One suggestion that I have tried out is to put a piece of laminate on the outfeed side of my router fence. (I'm using an incra-jig fence that is about 13 inches long on both the infeed and outfeed sides.)

I must be missing some key piece of instruction because I don't seem to be getting a straight edge on a practice piece I used. The leading end of the board seems to be getting cut more narrowly than the rest of the board.

When feeding the board along the table should the board be snug against the outfeed side? I'm not clear on which edge of the board to joint. Convex or concave? Is my infeed/outfeed on my fence not long enough? How much should I be taking off with each pass? When is it close enought to being straight? For that matter, how can you check that a 9' long board has a straight edge?

I liked one other idea that I saw. It was to put a straight edge on the board and then run my router against that. Great idea, but I don't have anything straight that is 9' long. If I can find something straight and that long then this sounds like an easier method. Wouldn't this methos also produce less waste?

Thanks, Jim

[Brian]

Maybe the fence isn't adjusted quite right for the laminate "shim" on the outfeed side. If you are taking more material off that the thickness of the laminate sheet, you might see this problem.

Concave side to maintain stability against the fence. You can't keep the bottom of a cup stable throughout a jointing operation.

Perhaps not, if the cup you're trying to flatten is somewhat pronounced.

1/16" - assuming that is the thickness of the laminate shim on the outfeed side.

FWIW

Brian.

[B a r r y B u r k e J r .]

Do you need a 9' board? I mean, you're not jointing a 9' board that's going to be cut shorter? This may sound obvious, but to some, it's not.

How about a hand plane?

Barry

[Bruce]

Spring for a 10' straight edge, clamp it to the board and use your router and a flush cut trimming bit with a ball bearing. I've seen David Marks do this using MDF for the straight edge.

[Toller]

In principle it is easy; the thickness of your shim should be the same as the amount you are routing off the piece. Set it up right, and you can't go wrong.

That assumes you have a bit big enough to do the entire 4/4 with one pass. Otherwise you have a mess. I suppose you could do 1/2" with no shim, and then turn it over and do the other half with a shim. That ought to work, but it has to be set up perfectly.

It also assumes your router fence is 4 or 5 feet long. Any shorter and jointing a 9' board would be a problem; there simply isn't enough support. I can't see a work around on that one, except to pray.

[Mike G]

Buy a hand plane and learn how to use it. Simple, quiet, effective.

[jegan]

No, I don't need 9'. That's the way they came. I don't want to start cutting up my boards for length before I know what sort of widths I'm dealing with. Maybe I'm putting the cart before the horse though.

I think I have pretty much resigned myself to finding something that is 9' long and straight. Maybe Home Depot will have something suitable. It would be nice to find a metal straight edge. However, everything I have seen only goes up to 8' long.

Thanks, Jim

[jegan]

Given the length of my boards I don't think I'm going to be able to efficiently manage this with infeed/outfeed lengths of only 13". But, it was worth a try and I at least am learning this method.

I do have 1" bit and it was working ok.

Thanks, Jim

[nospam]

I got a real nice piece of aircraft aluminum at a junk yard for $1 a pound. nice and straight.

go to a metals supplier and get a section of 1" x 4" tube. it comes in

20 foot lengths. cut it in half and get on with it....

[Mike G]

Hi Jim

If I read that correctly you certainly do have the cart before the horse.

There are any number of good reasons to rough cut stock to length and width and not a single one for working with a 9' board if you don't have to.

Outside of the obvious ones you are now experiencing you will also reduce the amount of warp you have to deal with by at least cutting stock to rough length. Example, say a 9' board bows 1/4" from the middle to either end. If you cut the board into shorter pieces the bow from the middle of the shorter pieces to either end is greatly reduced. Not only is it, from a handling stand point, easier to deal with, but you then have to remove less stock to correct the situation.

When you get your stock home one of the first things you should be doing is laying it all out, arranging it for best appearance and marking it up for rough Slightly oversized, cutting, cutting it, then milling it to size. For that first step I like to use a piece of chalk then as they get milled I mark them as to which piece is going where. Usually with something a bit more durable then chalk.

No matter what you do some percentage of stock is going to be waste, but if you follow the above procedure, at least in principal, you will, in the long run, waste far less stock. You'll also find milling the stock a lot less of a painful operation. You will also have a better developed mental picture of the finished product and what is going where in the construction.

[B a r r y B u r k e J r .]

How are you going to thickness it? If you're using it as is, go ahead and cut it to length. If you're going to thickness it with an electric planer, you may need to add a few inches if your machine snipes the ends.

Cutting to length, even a rough length, causes you to lose less wood when jointing, in addition to making the lumber much easier to deal with.

Barry