But it works only if the boards have been jointed flat on one face, and the opposite faces planed too. If the OP is able to face-joint a board, he can joint the edges with the same method.
-- Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
How come we choose from just two people to run for president and 50 for Miss America?
Dave
What ever happened to your friend Dave Eisan. He used to post lots of good advice.
I do it all the time with excellent results. My router table has a split fence. When I want to edge join some boards, I slip an old hacksaw blade behind the outfeed fence and align the fence with the cutter. Works like a charm if the wood face has been planed or is reasonably flat.
HTH,
Vic
Thickness planer ?
Good basic points raised here Leon. I don't know why, but if you talk about jointing with a jointer, a lot of people will mention the length of the tables as crucial, but when talk switches to using router tables and a fence, the focus seems to be on getting the outfeed fence and the bit flush (when talking jointers this usually only comes up during fault finding discussions). Although important in their own right, such items are secondary to the fence length being appropriate for the job.
For those that want to challenge this statement, look at all the jointer posts, rarely, if ever, will anyone say ensure the outfeed table and cutters are level - its usually accepted as a "given". The router fence performs the same role
For a successful joint to be achieved on the router table, the length of the fence is important but often overlooked. Perhaps the focus is too tool centric, rather than process oriented.
Greg
I have had a problem with the hand plane thought for years, it just does not compute for me. I've done the routing of 2 boards like your example, done it with a circular saw too, done it to miters with a dovetail saw to finis a miter cut. Someday I've got to take the time & try the hand plane. In my mind, if I'm planing along on the edges of 2 boards and I have a smooth edge that would indicate to me that I've done enough. But my mind says "Scott, there's matching hills & valleys in them there boards, ain't no way in hell you've got a glue joint."
What am I not seeing here? I've got a #6C that I could try..needs some tuning but it's available. I'm about as far as you can get from being a neander so please use the small words if you respond. :-)
Scott
-- An unkind remark is like a killing frost. No matter how much it warms up later, the damage remains.
Hopefully you're not seeing light between the boards. Small words, and good advice here as elsewhere, "full-length strokes."
Of course, the limit of error in the worst case would be twice the blade exposure, so a thin shaving is a good idea....
OK, here goes: Practice, practice, practice. :-)
Our own Jeff Gorman had a nice way of approaching it. He said you should try to make the board concave. Assuming the length of the plane is not too much less than that of the board, you will be unable to do it. But in the process, you should have a board that is very close to straight (and it won't be convex).
Start your stroke towards the center of the board and proceed to lengthen your stroke a little at a time, until you are taking a full-length shaving. That should do it.
Chuck Vance
It's my understanding that the point of planing the boards side-by-side is not to get uniformity along the length of the joint but rather to compensate for any deviation you have from a right angle. The idea is that you place the two edges together before planing. Then you flip one of the boards 180 degrees about its long axis so the planed edges come together. Even if you've planed a noticable bevel on each board, the sum of the angles will be exactly
180 degrees (i.e. will result in a flat panel). This will, in principle, work even for large deviations from 90 degrees. HTH.Cheers, Mike
btw: I like your implication that neanders are more than just monosyllabic brutes. :-)
Doug and Dave seem to have a small war going on. I use a "Job-Site" edge jointer all the time with my router. A basic router table with a modified fence does the trick for me. Run your fence halfway though the tablesaw taking off a mere 1/32" or so. Clamp it down on the table and edge joint to your hearts content.
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