I just got a Delta 6" jointer for my shop. Sometimes I would like to make
1/8" thick boards for small projects. Is there a way to fairly accurately thickness plane a small board with the jointer? I experimented a little bit, but could not get the opposite faces of the board parallel - making more of a wedge than a board.Thanks, Richard
When using a jointer to face plane, it will only make that face flat. It has no reference to allow making the opposite face parallel. That's the province of a thickness planer, which will make a board flat across it's width, and the two faces parallel (but not necessarily flat, that's a jointer). GerryG
Richard Green wrote:
That's the wrong tool for the job, Richard. You need to use a thickness planer to get the side opposite the jointed side to be perfectly parallel. You'll have to be very careful in making 1/8" pieces on a thickness planer, due to the likelihood that the pieces will fly up into the head. Consider securing them to a sled with tape.
Dave
Richard Green wrote:
There is a way to do it, it's not quite 100% accurate and always looked a bit scary to me. I've only seen it done, not done it myself. It involves a jig that references the top side of the board to the fence. It's only usewd for the second side obviously. The board kinda hangs under the jig while riding along the fence. I've always seen it done with thicker pieces so they had some edge to grab but you could probably do it with some double stick tape... as I said, scary.
Sorry I can't give more details but maybe a google search or something
You can do it, but you have to do it consciously, not just run it through and hope. Once the cut starts, I sort of walk it through with the hold-downs referenced flat to the outfeed, and never let the heel get past the cutter at TDC. Sort of "baby step" feeding.
Not that I would do 1/8 unless it was fully supported. That's sanding territory. I can do about 4 1/2" wide against a fence on my OSS, but smart money goes a plane or fully supported into a machine.
I've been doing some searching and found this on a site called Poorman Publications:
Attach a Thickness Planer to Your Jointer Make Your Jointer Do Double Duty. By building a simple attachment, and placing it on top of your jointer, you can have your jointer do double duty as a thickness planer. The attachment works equally well on either a 4 or 6-in. jointer. It will enable you to to dress rough-sawn lumber to finish dimensions, or plane resawed stock from
1/8 to 2-in. in thickness. The attachment is simple to build, but dimensions given in the plan may have to be altered somewhat when fitting the unit to different makes of jointers. The cost to build is just a few bucks, and certainly worth the effort when you can use lumber you finish to complete jobs.The step-by-step picture plans also have pull apart assembly drawings. This is a real time & money saver.My assumption is that this is the kind of jig you are talking about. If you have to somehow hold the board above the blades, it sounds a little dangerous to me. I am a magician and build a lot of my own props, so I need to be extra careful about keeping all 10 fingers :) I think I'll avoid scary.
Thanks, Richard
Richard Green wrote: ...about thicknessing relatively thin stock w/ jointer...
No real disagreement w/ others here but my take is if there's a cabinet shop or a school shop at the trade school, I'd look into getting them to run some through the thickness sander...much safer and better end result besides.
Where did he go?
"Pay no attention to the man behindthe curtain."
Ta dah! I'm back. Just lurking in the shadows and listening to the advice...
Richard :)
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