I've been looking at jointers and planers for a home shop. It seems that all of the commercially available jointers are 6" and the planers are about 12". What's the point in having a planer twice as large?
I must be missing something obvious... help a rookie out?
Thanks!
So that you can get a board of reasonable width to a given thickness and still have the sides parallel. You can skinny one down on a joiner but the sides are unlikely to wind up parallel.
Joiners are best for getting a straight *edge*; consequently, width of the machine is of less importance. You can get wide joiners too...12"...16""...all you have to do is spring for the big bucks.
I'm just thinking that if I edge glue two 6" wide boards together, I'd still be able to run them through my 12" planer.
Joe
of the commercially available jointers are 6" and the planers are about 12". What's the point in having a planer twice as large?
I'd really like to have one triple the width. OK, you just jointed your 6" boards, planed them to the thickness you want, then glued them together. Maybe it is not quite perfect. You put it through the planer and now it is perfect!
Maybe you did not use the jointer at all. You bought a 1 x 12 or 1 x
8 pine board at the lumber yard. Your project would be perfect if the two pieces in the center were 5/8" thick. Hey look, if will go right through my planer!My planer is 13". Coincidently, the most used cutting board in my house is 12 7/8" wide, made from glued up pieces of maple.
Another reason is cost. The tool manufacturers can build 12" planers at a much more reasonable price than a 12" joiner, so they do.
Not...
Jointers come in 4,6,8,and 12 inch models. The most common hobbiest is the 6" If you can afford it 8" is better.
I bought mine at an estate sale, so I saved a bunch. You use it for more than edging. You face joint one face, before sending it to the planer. The jointer will flatten one face, the planer will make the other face parallel to that flattened face.
The idea of a wider planer is to take glue ups and clean them up. s> snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:
at all of the commercially available jointers are 6" and the planers are ab= out 12". =A0What's the point in having a planer twice as large?
Theoretically jointers and planers serve two different purposes - but not entirely.
- Primary purpose for a jointer is to edge plane boards to provide a good straight glue-able edge - thus "jointer". But Jointers are also used to plane one surface to obtain a flat face before it us run through a planer (if you have one)
- Planers surface plane and provide parallel surfaces. They are also very useful for smoothing boards that have been edge-glued.
The thing you need to keep in mind is when making large flat surfaces for table tops, book case tops etc., where you are using lumber instead of hardwood ply, you need to keep boards narrower. I often cut nice, 10-12" wide boards into 5-6" strips so I can reverse the growth rings and glue them back together. A nice, wide board looks pretty until it starts to warp and cup - or even split because it is restrained from cupping. Cutting into smaller strips and reversing the growth rings slows this down. So, with that in mind, a 6" jointer can surface plane one side of a ripped board and provide a joint-able edge; then the 12-1/2 planer can surface plane the glued boards.
You can pay any price for "portable' surface planer but don't skimp too much. I see some in the big box stores that don't even have infeed and outfeed tables. Most of these are Ryobi equipment which is a shame. Ryobi came out, during the 1990's with a couple of the best suitcase planers ever built. their 10" and 12-1/4" inch machines became almost legendary for quality, smoothness and durability. I owned the latter for 15 years when I turned it over to the son and upgraded in size. Apparently Ryobi adopted the Craftsman business model because it has been down hill since the late 90's. Shop carefully and use on-line reviews before you end up buying a bargain that will frustrate you for as long as you own the machine.
RonB
You're limiting your looking too much, then...
for a sample selection of what is easily available at reasonable price points...obviously higher capacity machines are higher cost.
These, of course, don't even begin to cover the "real" industrial-sized machines.
The advantage of a larger jointer is twofold--the surface width is the obvious one to easily surface larger stock in preparation for the planer but the second is the longer bed length. There's actually a third in that the extra mass alone is beneficial in any piece of gear as well.
There's a tendency here to minimize the value of a jointer to simply the single operation of jointing edges--this is a great under-utilization of the machine. It's also capable of rabbeting, tapering, as well as the obvious. If you can find the room and have the budget, I recommend at least 8". If room and cost are real constraints, consider one of the newer combo machines that are 12-13" planer/jointer-in-one at reasonable cost. FWW had a review of several just within the last couple of issues.
of the commercially available jointers are 6" and the planers are about 12". What's the point in having a planer twice as large?
Um, maybe because a jointer does the thin faces and the planer does the wide, flat faces? That said, a wider jointer can be used to face lumber, too, though it doesn't do quite as nice a job.
-- Life is an escalator: You can move forward or backward; you can not remain still. -- Patricia Russell-McCloud
of the commercially available jointers are 6" and the planers are about 12". What's the point in having a planer twice as large?
The easiest solution is to buy a combination jointer/planer so that their widths will always match. The equipment is usually cheaper than two separate machines since the frame, motor, drive, and cutter head are shared between functions. The downside is that there is a changeover time to go between functions but if you streamline your workflow the overhead is minimized. I've been using a Robland 12" combination for 13 years now and have no problems (although there have been times when a 16" or 18" machine would have been good to have - never satisfied I guess).
I think there are a lot of people who buy their lumber S2S or better at a store and then work with those boards. Assuming that you select only the good straight stock before you plunk down the big bucks, you already have "jointed" and planed stock. If that is the case for you, then you could expect that the board is pretty flat and not twisted. Then you don't need a wide jointer. But you would still need a wider planer if reducing the thickness of an already good board for some particular purpose.
On the other hand, if you work with a lot of rough sawn lumber, as I do, you are working with twisted, cupped and bowed stuff real often. I could really use a jointer wider than my 6 inch in this case. But come people have told me that, even then, they simply cut boards down to fit the jointer and glue up for wider stock.
Pete Stanaitis
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of the commercially available jointers are 6" and the planers are about 12". What's the point in having a planer twice as large?
And oddly I have no jointer and a 15" planer. I did have a jointer and never used it.
Anyway, to answer your question. A jointer helps to initially true up one side and one edge of a board. Call it 6 inches wide. Now glue up that board to another of the same size, you need twice the capacity.
The sizes you mentioned are common sizes but certainly not the only sizes. For a stationary jointer the 6" is pretty much entry level in size and 12" for a planer is pretty small with 13"~15" being the norm.
And for what it is worth the combination jointer/planer is beginning to be more common place. It is typically less expensive than buying a stationary jointer and stationary planer and takes up half the room.
On Sun, 08 Apr 2012 07:59:14 -0500, Leon
Not?????
A slight amount of research on many manufacturers web sites reveals,
16" and 17" jointers
Where are you getting s2s that has been jointed??? Granted you did mention "or better" but you need to go up to s3s to get one edge jointed. between s2s and s3s is s2s1e which is typically flat and parallel on both faces and one edge is ripped straight which still does not give you a glue edge.
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or a 24...
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:)
FYI/FWIW, if you're going to rip wide boards that are bowed or twisted down to a width that's manageable on your jointer, you'd better be doing it on a bandsaw and not a tablesaw. Ripping a twisted board on a tablesaw is dangerous as hell.
I you are buying finished hardwood at the big box stores, and you buy much of it, you can easily justify a planer and jointer. I was finishing a project some time ago and needed to run to HD to buy a piece of red oak. It was a nice clear piece of 1x6, 8'. Then I made the mistake of figuring the price per board foot - $7.50. That stings when you buy most of your Oak under $2.
RonB
On Sun, 08 Apr 2012 10:50:11 -0400, tiredofspam
When I win the lottery and can afford all these great new tools, I'll be moving to some house on a pristine lake with a substantial stand of harvestable trees around me. Or at the very least, a decent lumber yard within traveling distance.
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