Can You Edge-Joint Stacked Slabs With a Plane?

[Steve H Graham]

I have a restored Stanley No. 6 now. Waiting for the wood parts.

I have a question. If I want to edge-joint (not face-joint) a piece of wood made from three boards glued together one on top of the other (like pancakes), can I do it with a hand plane?

The reason I ask is that I watched the Mario Rodriguez plane video, and he talked about the importance of taking the wood grain into account, because the plane will dig in and have problems if you go the wrong way. With three pieces of wood presenting their edges to the plane, you have three sets of wood grain which are completely independent.

I don't plan to edge-joint with the plane, but I thought it was an interesting question.

[john brenton]

Of course you can do that with a plane.

I'm no guru, and don't posture myself that way, but in my HUMBLE opinion (that's my permanent disclaimer):

Depending on the wood you may have just one board that has a bunch of different directions on it. I just planed a funky spanish cedar timber that had about 5 direction changes on the face and changes on the sides as well. But in my experience changes on one boards edge has not been an issue, and I've always been careful to choose wood that will give me an up and down "quartersawn-ish" orientation if I sandwich/laminate the boards. I have made a lot of stupid mistakes with that though. I made a pine solera (work board for guitar building) when I first started wanting to build guitars and I accidentally put a funky cut 1x with a big fat knot in it that was meant for the very edge (that would have been cut off during shaping)...RIGHT in the middle of the solera. Which wouldn't be so bad if the work board didn't need to have a concaved shape to it. Planing was great until I'd hit that stupid knot. I had this beautiful, uniform, quarter grain-ish orientation interrupted by a funky cut piece with a big ugly black knot. If pine wasn't as cheap as it is I would punched a hole in the wall.

This kind of project...or any project for that matter, starts at the lumber yard when you select wood. I can spend 30 minutes or more just looking for one board at the lumber yard. And Lowes and Home Depot? You can spend an hour and not find crap for quality. I'm no master of wood properties, but in the case you're describing your bigger problem would be cupping, warping etc.

If you can orient them all in one direction, great...if not...well....you're about to learn a lot. Trying to eliminate tear out can be like trying to shave your sideburns evenly. You cut a little here now you need to cut a little there...until you just say forget it and go with no sideburns. In the case of the wood you say "I can live with that tear out...I like the rustic look" or if you're lucky "Ok, I guess this side will be the bottom now." In the case of the boards, if they are regular old 1x's it'll be a pain to hone in on that one board if the tear out is deep.

If for some reason you just can't get the right boards and you create a tricky grain then just go slow and pay extra zen-like attention to the grain once you get close to the final dimension. It's a lot easier to avoid tear out than it is to fix it.

Now if I could just take my own advice....

I have a restored Stanley No. 6 now. Waiting for the wood parts.

I have a question. If I want to edge-joint (not face-joint) a piece of wood made from three boards glued together one on top of the other (like pancakes), can I do it with a hand plane?

The reason I ask is that I watched the Mario Rodriguez plane video, and he talked about the importance of taking the wood grain into account, because the plane will dig in and have problems if you go the wrong way. With three pieces of wood presenting their edges to the plane, you have three sets of wood grain which are completely independent.

I don't plan to edge-joint with the plane, but I thought it was an interesting question.

[Russell Sansom]

I've done this dozen's of times. Lots of variables, but just test each of the 3 laminates on a shooting board to get grain direction. If it shoots well, then it will be fine with 2 other like boards, tear-out wise. In my experience jointing laminate like this is almost always much harder than jointing a one-piece board of the same thickness. I guess the "planing properties" differ for each board, so while board 1 will welcome the iron to dig in and you could take a .001" cut, board 2 or 3 won't give it up unless you take a .0025" cut. So, there's usually a compromise. But it really depends on the wood.
I speak of this so glibly because I process my project boards in bulk. Once I have jointed two faces and an edge, I clamp the identical boards together into a tight rectangular solid billet and finish the other edge and the ends as a single block of wood. So, it's a 4-board laminate without the glue. I usually have to resort to planing cross grain because of the difficulty I mentioned. When the boards come apart I send each one to the shooting board for a couple .001" swipes to take out the roughness left by the cross grain planing.

And JOHN, I assume you chopped out the knot and put in a plug?

[john brenton]

No, I thought about it but I decided to keep that little bugger in there. I did have to pop a shim in one spot, but I can work a knot.

And JOHN, I assume you chopped out the knot and put in a plug?

[Steve H Graham]

So it sounds like a router is probably a smarter choice.

[steven c newman]

Yep, I've done a few with a plane. I tend to keep the plane at an angle to the direction I'm planing. More of a shearing cut. After a couple passes like that, and no problems, then I'll go with the grain with the full length of the plane. This gets rid of any 'dippity-dos" left by the shearing cuts.

[Mike Brady]

Why worry about tear-out on edge-jointed boards? They are going to be glued together anyway. I would sister up two boards at a time for jointing and pay attention to the show surface grain for both appearance and grain direction. That's where tearout counts and you might have to compromise between ease of planing and best appearance. Some people like to alternate bark side up and then down, but studies have shown that that does little to improve stability of the panel.

Yes, the angles that you leave behind while planing the edges will be complimentary, but the longitudinal suface of the boards must be perfectly flat or slightly hollow for the glue line to truly disappear. Any errors there will be doubled when you put the boards together.