Re: Planers versus jointers

This is a confusion that arises through shortened terminology. In full, the names are:

Planer - anything that planes

Surface planer - planer with knives and tables in one surface.

Jointer - narrow surface planer with a vertical fence

Thickness planer - planer with knives above the table

You _need_ a thickness planer. You will get wedges with the others.

If you saw the boards fairly flat, and they stay that way when drying, then you don't need a surface planer.

If you have cupped boards, then a thickness planer will flatten them. Not using excess pressure helps (don't try to _iron_ the wood flat !) and sometimes some hand plane work to knock the high spots down. But you _can_ remove most cupping on a thicknesser.

If you have twist, then you can't take this out with a thicknesser and this is where a surface planer is useful. Personally I look twice at the board. Boards (in most timbers) shouldn't twist, so it's either a drying fault or an unstable board. Often I rip this in half (if I can) to get the smaller useful and stable part out, rather than machining it perfectly flat and knowing it will twist again tomorrow.

You don't need a jointer for hardwoods or the "timberyard" part of the process, because we rarely need squared edges. But many of us have them for joinery anyway, so we use them as surface planers.

Steps for truing stock.

Absolutely necessary. A flat face to work from.

Joint (make flat and straight) one face (reference face) so you have something to true (reference) the remaining three sides to. Not to be done on a planer because the feed rollers will push out any warp and it will reappear as the stock exits the planer. For the same reason use very little down force when jointing.

Joint one edge with the reference face against the jointers fence. This will give you a straight edge that is at 90 degrees to the reference face. Also an edge to reference the next edge.,

Rip a second edge on the table saw with the reference face against the table and the reference edge against the fence. Try to do it on the jointer and it will give you a straight edge but not one necessarily parallel to the first edge.

Now you can plane the piece to a proper thickness with the reference face flat down on the planers feed table. Since the reference face is flat the planer has no warp to press out so the face being planed will be not only be flat but parallel to the reference face.

The jointer performs the two most critical steps in the process (the reference face and edge) but, with sufficient dicking around, there are work arounds. but, without the dicking around, the planer will not perform the functions of a jointer and the jointer will not perform the functions of a planer.

How long will this urban legend be around?

C'mon over and I'll buy you a case of your favorite if you can smash the cup out of a piece of rough 4/4 maple. Then I'll show you how you really have to flaunt good sense to do it to 3/4 pine.

BTW, I doubt any lunchbox planer out there can apply more pressure on a board than a 210 lb human bearing down with pushblocks at the jointer.

Oh yes, and one face does not have to be absolutely flat to feed the planer. It just has to sit flat.

What ever you say bubba. We'll ignore the fact that the PSI pushing down on the stock as it feeds through a planer is concentrated on the very small contact area of the feed rollers as well as the fact that if it ain't flat going through the planer it ain't going to be flat as it comes out. We'll also pass on the fact that proper feeding of stock through a jointer specifically precludes pushing down with any great force on the stock. It's neither desirable nor necessary.

We'll also pretend that the comment "> Oh yes, and one face does not have to be absolutely flat to feed the planer. It just has to sit flat.." actually makes some kind of sense and that there will be an efficient and accurate way to get a true edge with such a board.

Where do these people come from???????????

Huh?

Run a twisted board through a planer, get another twisted board of equal thickness all along it's length. The planer will not remove the twist, only jointing one face and THEN planing to thickness will remove the twist.

Barry

Not if you shim it. I watched our instructor do it in a class last weekend - two shims taped to the high corners of a twisted board.

Now that I've seen it done, I know I can do it, too.

Different tables.

Locking the material with a shim on a stationary table is much easier than trying to shim a 6' board that is going to move on a short table under the stationary cutter.

If you have a consistent cup, it may work, but if you have some odd twisting at different points, it is going to be much more difficult to get it right. Only a couple of feet of the board is supported at a given time.

The shorter the board, the easier it is. The thicker the board, the less likely to get pressed down if cupped. I've tried taking very light cuts on some pine boards with cup and had no luck. It is just too soft and easily flattened by the rollers to work properly. On 8/4 oak, I had no problem.

I don't have a jointer yet and I've gotten by, but there have been times that life would have been much easier with it. I've also passed on some cheap wood that could have easily been used with a jointer, but would have been a PITA with just a planer.

No matter how bad a piece of wood may be twisted, someone here has been able to get it perfect with an Xacto knife and beer can opener, but it sure is easier with the right tools. Ed snipped-for-privacy@snet.net

Fred the Red Shirt spaketh...

I think it boils down to people who learned with a jointer and people who didn't. There are many workarounds for not having a jointer, but you have to recognize they are workarounds. I learned with a jointer and will always see uses for one and consider it a priority in the shop for precision woodworking.

You know, people only had crude stone (or was it bone ;-) axes at one time too.

Renata

There has always been powered jointers. It's just that before water power or electricity was harnessed they were called apprentices.

Gary Rogowski who writes articles for Fine Woodworking, has addressed this issue and agrees that, if it existed for the same price and size range as the other tools, a 12 or 13 inch jointer would be the perfect companion to the 12 or 13 inch thickness planer. You bring up a surface planer -- interesting. Now I know that you have to have a dead flat surface extending a ridiculous distance out each end of the jointer for a long board. This adds up to a very large and expensive machine. Of course the planer was in this category just a few years ago. The benchtop thickness planer brought this machine down to a reasonable size and price. Somehow it just seems that a 12 inch "jointer" or as you describe, a surface planer might be created along the lines of the innovative thought that went into a benchtop thickness planer. It might not do a 6 ft board the way an 8 or 12 inch jointer would, but it might -- if not to bed -- could possibly put this discussion into a light sleep. What do you think?

Isn't that where the European combination planer / thicknesser is heading ? These cost the same as 12" thicknesser + 6" jointer, but work on 10" overall. If there were some affordable 12" combinations, I'd be considering them.

One problem with this is that the thicknesser is underneath the surfacer tables. If these tables are heavy (wide, long or substantial cast iron) then they get awkward to move out of the way.

now THAT's an attitude that qualifies for the pot calling the kettle black! (in case you can't figure it out, I'm referring to your idea that folks are ignorant for having a jointer). Green monster, perhaps? Grow up.

dave

CW wrote:

Hilarious.

Now, if you're flattening your lumber with hand planes, you may not need one, but otherwise you're hilarious.

Anyone can "live without" any tool. A jointer simply makes truing stock faster, easier, and more accurate than workarounds.

Barry (justifying the $375 I spent on a jointer)

No flame. AAMOF, I could live without a jointer, and did for a long time, but I wouldn't want to. So happens I recently took delivery of a new Powermatic 54a, which replaced an old benchtop model. As far as "justifying the money", read on and see that even SWMBO had to agree that ! have summarily, if luckily, done so in this case.

I had recently picked up 43 rough walnut "blanks" a local sign company gave me for the asking. They were half-moon shaped pieces about 48" long X 3" thick, likely S2S1E at one point and I got the rough edge and the curve only. The only way to make these things useful was to begin by jointing the rough edge and going from there.

Each of these 43 blanks, after being jointed and planed, resulted in S4S walnut stock with dimensions of 3" X 3" X 36" ... perfect table leg blanks. At local hardwood lumber dealers prices of $11.75 b/f for S4S walnut blanks of this size and grade, the new jointer basically paid for itself, and made another $380, in less than a day.

I could of done the same thing with a hand plane and realized a greater gain, but I wouldn't have.

A planer makes both sides parallel to each other, they do not flatten. A jointer flattens a side, then a planer can provide a second flat surface.