Making long boards out of short

[Ivan Vegvary]

Is there any practical way of doing this? I have 160± pieces of 1"x6"x42" boards. Hem fir. Is finger jointing possible in the home shop. Willing to pay for some tooling. Could a commercial place 'fingerjoint' this for me for a price that would be less than buying equivalent amount of lumber. BTW, I live in the Northwest, we have some lumber mills nearby.

BTW, 15 years ago I cut 3000 l.f. of custom moulding for a re-model that I was doing. Still have the Foley Belsaw moulder. At that time a lumber supplier was able to get me finger joint (not door jamb) 1" primed paint grade lumber for a very attractive price. Finger joint has no knots, does not warp (every other piece is flip-flopped) and is great to work with. Sure beats the mdf which turns to dust when you shape it.

Thanks for ideas,

Ivan Vegvary

[fredfighter]

There are fingerjoint router bits sold for just this purpose.

That's a good size, but not a good wood, for fence pickets.

It seems they'd also be good for some 20" x 20" x 40" six board blanket boxes, toy chests etc. They'd use about 20 boards each with very little left over. With Careful resawing and planing you could get two 1/4" boards from each and use them for drawer sides.

I had thought softwood too soft for drawers and runners but recently re-finished my Mother's pine nightstand. 60 + years old, been chewed on by dogs and run over a few times by my Dad on his scooter and still sturdy as hell, as is the nightstand.

--=20

FF

[Chris Friesen]

If you have slow growth, the rings will be a lot tighter and the wood denser.

You can get salvaged "heart pine" or "long leaf pine" but it's pretty hard to get new stuff.

Chris

[henry]

A Scarf Joint will make the boards longer and less wide.

[RicodJour]

Explain that, please.

R

[professorpaul]

Check this link...

[Trevor]

You could also use a lock miter router/shaper bit as well. Just route both board ends flat/horizontal and flip them... just like the funger joint in that manner, but offers greater utility...

unless you plan on doing a lot of this joining, then a fingerjoint cutter may be the best option.

~Trevor

[Bugs]

Try a birds tongue joint which you can cut on the table saw. It makes a very strong joint that is attractive. The down side is that it uses up a little more of the length to form the long tapered joint. Bugs

[RicodJour]

I'm still curious why a scarf joint would affect the width of the board(s). How does an end joint affect the width?

R