My 1st go at Neander face jointing

Hey all,

Well, dang, it wasn't that difficult, really. But then, it was just a piece of scrap I thought I'd try it out on - no "pressure."

A little background. Over the past several months I went through the internal debate of which to save for and acquire 1st : "power jointer v. power planer/thicknesser." Got feedback here, with opinions/reasonings on both sides of course, but I ended up purchasing a power planer/thicknesser (15" General Int'l).

My thinking was, edge jointing can be done various ways - router, TS, jointer plane; the 1st two I already owned, the 3rd I acquired when Steve Knight had his 50%-off sale recently (ash w/ walnut D handle). So, edge jointing I had "covered."

As far as face jointing prior to sticking the wood in the planer, well, I came back here for more discussion. Some people sweat the flatness of the reference face more than others, when it comes to deciding whether a board is "ready" to be fed into the planer/thicknesser. Some would only wager a board that is purely cupped can be successfully (or safely) thicknessed as-is - success including ending up w/ the two faces co-planar. Others point to various sled/shim arrangements that will hold nearly any twisted/bowed board steady and allow one to essentially turn your thicknesser into a jointer.

Still another approach for the evil twisted board (besides kindling), is to use a handplane to knock down the high spots on one side and get it "good enough" to use as the reference face for the thicknesser.

And so, I decided to have a go at it this way. It wasn't much - a 3/4" poplar board (originally an S3 from the BORG) 20" by 4", but when you pressed down on one corner, the opposite shot up 3/16" - a quite noticeable teeter-totter.

With a bench hook on my TS top, a shim for the poplar, and the Knight jointer plane, I had at it. Focussed my energies at the two "quadrants" of one of the faces; no marking guage, just several swipes and then I'd flip it over to test it on the TS top. A few rounds of that got me pretty darn close; had a bit of convexity to this face, so swiped the middle section a few times, and then one more set of full length passes, and it was "rock free!" Definitely a face suitable to lay on the bed of the thicknesser.

Now, after face jointing, but before thicknessing, the minimal thickness of the board is sitting at 5/8". ... if you think about the

3/16" of original rocking, half that is 3/32" (the teeter-totter is balanced) - I took off just a 32nd more than needed on my 1st try (given the twist was symmetrical, blah, blah, blah). Hmph. Not bad. I should be able to end up w/ a 9/16" board after thicknessing.

So, if you're still wrestling w/ the "jointer v. planer" debate yourself, here's some feedback on one way it can be done. Even by The New Guy :)

-Chris

Reply to
TheNewGuy
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Chris wrote: snip>So, if you're still wrestling w/ the "jointer v. planer" debate yourself, here's some feedback on one way it can be done.

Reply to
tom

Do they get cold in the winter?

Reply to
Mike

You know, I hadn't thought of that. I know I can't plane a board properly with a handplane, but I could use it simply to knock down some high spots and then run it through the planer.

Reply to
toller

Yeah, I'm with you on that. I'm amazed by the folks who can go through the whole progression of planes on a roughsawn board and end up with it flat, smooth, and true! I'm just glad to find a method that works for me w/o having to buy a powered jointer.

-Chris

Reply to
TheNewGuy

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