Using a thickness planer to face joint

[escottkent]

I have a Delta portable thickness planer and I heard about someone using it as a jointer - to face joint boards, not edge joint them. Has anyone ever heard of this? Thanks.

[todd]

Nope. It's never come up here. I might have missed it, though, so you might want to go to

and check the archives just in case.

todd

[Dave Balderstone]

Yes. You build a sled to carry the board, and shim it (using any number of methods to hold it in place, from side wedges to hot glue) so that the sled is the bottom reference plane. Then take light passes (1/32 to

1/16 max) until you have a coplanar top.

Here's one solution, using shims and double-sided tape:

[Frank Ketchum]

It comes up here about once a week. It now seems to come up more often than the "what tablesaw to buy" variety.

Search the archives

[woody]

fww had an article not to long ago about building a sled to face joint boards. My answer would be to use a plane to get one side flat than the planner.

[thewoodbutcher]

Excellent - thanks!

[Ron]

Yep. Have Delta 13" planer myself and have done this several times.

The boards I've done have usually been in the 4-6' length.

I've just 'stood' them on one edge, directly on the table and eased them through. Only once has it tried to tip and that was probably my fault since I was trying to go across the table at an angle. Doesn't work very well as the rollers want it to go straight through.

Make sure the infeed and outfeed table are level also.

Finally, as the board exits the planer lifting up on the far end just a bit, helps avoid any snipe.

That being said, having a sled to rest the board on and push it through as Dave mentioned is a very good idea also.

Ron