Do you consider a jointed face surfaced?

[johnny means]

In my shop, jointing is just preparation for planing. In other words every jointed face gets milled again in the planer. How about you?

Anyway, a recent post here had me wandering about spiral head jointers and if anyone has run into the situation of having a straight blade planer doing nasty things to there beautiful jointed lumber.

Does a spiral head jointer need to be accommodated by a matching planer to get the full benefit?

[David Kumm]

I don't consider a face jointed side final either but more because of inconsistent feed rate and pressure. A feeder might change that. My planers are spiral- a byrd and an ITCH- but a straight knife can leave a great edge too. Spiral heads are great at compensating for current planer shortcomings. When planers were cast iron with large diameter cutterheads spinning on high quality huge bearings with massive chipbreakers, pressure bars and powered feed rollers they were built to give a great finish. Quality knives with a good grind and sometimes a secondary bevel deal well with tearout issues as well. Guys who knew how to use the onboard grinders would argue their finish was second to none. Times have changed, planers are much more cheaply built- except Martin etc- and fortunately the spiral head has risen to the occasion. Dave

[Larry Edgerton]

I have a power feed on my jointer for face jointing and I still run that face through the planer on the second pass.

I have found with my planer, a SCM S520, that if the waves in the board are straight, and not twisted that I can take a light pass, then flip and take a light pass and so forth and come up with a straight flat board. If twisted then the jointer is mandatory, but otherwise the planer can handle it. The tables on the planer are about 3'5" across and as long as the first passes are light it flattens out a board nicely. The only parts I joint always are styles and rails.

I have a Tersa head in my planer and don't see a spiral as being an improvement. Much better planer/head than my old Powermatic. I had the knife grinder on mine, but the time it takes to grind and reset knives was time wasted. Seemed like right after you ground knives there would be something hidden in the wood. Still is, but I can shift the Tersa knives in about a minute.

Larry

[David Nelson1]

I typically skip joint my faces just enough to get the rock out of the wood and clear the rough out to around 50-70%. Go to the planer light passes till I get a good face then flip the board and run the skipped face threw. I try to keep track of the amount removed from both sides and marry it up to minimize movement. This method has work really well for the last 1000 linear feet of oak floor blanks. Prior to that I was facing till I get a clear board and then removing what it took it clear the rough side only. I had more movement even if I stickered the wood for a few days.

[Myk Rian]

In other words every jointed face gets milled again in the planer. How about you?

Yep. Planer is used next.
You'll have to run the piece through anyway, to get the opposite side.
Takes a second to flip it over for a pass on the jointed side to get rid of knife marks.

[Harvey Pascoe]

I have standard knives on my jointer that I hand hone to 4000. I think the surface I get is as near perfect as machine can make it but there are still visible knife cuts that become even more pronounced when finish is applied. Therefor I either finish up with a plane or scraper depending on wood type. Same goes for the planer.

With difficult wood, which I use a lot of, I avoid the planer altogether and just go to the scary sharp jointer that eliminates 95% of tear out. It would be nice if I could hone planer knives, but I can't. Oh, and the time it takes to hone and reset jointer knives is more than worth the time saved in trying to eliminate tear out with a scraper.

[Kent A Bathurst]

I'm like David - I usually joint only enough to get a stable surface for the planer, but sometimes that amounts to an almost fully-finished face.

The key point for me, though is this:

Among the lessons learned is the one that taught me to rip oversize, and to remove only enough material on the first pass through the jointer and planer to get a clean surface on both sides [and, sometimes, not 100% clean]. Then, I let the boards stand on edge for 48 hours, to let the fibers release any stresses. Then - back to the jointer and then the planer for final thickness.

On the second tour through the jointer/planer, I tend to use the jointer on the face that will be the show face - which means the best grain, or the book-matched side. The planer gets the "not-for-show" face. I usually leave my jointer set for a thin pass - < 1/32" - and I can easily reverse direction if I encounter any unexpected tearout. I just happen to like the control I have with the jointer, so that's how I do it. [straight knives on both jointer and planer, BTW].

There are times where I can squeeze out an extra 1/16" [for table tops, for example] by leaving the not-for-show side less than perfect through the planer. I figger, if someone is going to get on their backs with a flashlight to check the underneath of a dining room table, we are gonna come to blows anyway.

[glenn bradley]

I think you mean that you joint a face, plane parallel and plane the jointed face again(?). I do flip my pieces when planing to thickness to remove material from both sides but, machined surfaces are not finish ready in my work. Machined surfces can be left on the "never seen" side like the underside of a floor standing chest or the deep internals of a drawered chest. I also am not overly careful about removing the occasional hand tool mark as it is a sort of sign that hand work was done.

[Rod Sheridan]

I have a stationary planer with the cartridge knives (Hammer A3-31).

It produces a beautiful finish in all the material I've used it with, including some tough grain situations.

The surface produced by the jointer can be better or worse than the planer with respect to mill marks, it just depends upon my hand feed rate.

I mill close to final dimension, then let the stock sit for a day, then back for final milling.

I try to remove an equall amount of material from both sides.

I have no need for a spiral head machine............Rod.

[Matt Meiser]

I joint one face mostly flat (i.e. there might be some areas missed, but it will sit flat on the planer table), then plane until the other face is flat, then finish up the first side, then flip each pass until I reach final thickness so that I remove roughly the same amount from each side.

[John Coloccia]

I joint one face mostly flat (i.e. there might be some areas missed, but it will sit flat on the planer table), then plane until the other face is flat, then finish up the first side, then flip each pass until I reach final thickness so that I remove roughly the same amount from each side.

Exactly. I get mine close and then let them sit for a couple of days. They inevitably bow a bit, and I clean that up on my final pass to size.

[Roger Myers]

I don't necessarily run the jointed face through the planer, but it happens more often than not. However when making furniture every surface that has been surfaced by a power jointer or planer does get surfaced by a hand plane, or sometimes sandpaper. Milling marks from a power jointer or power planer, no matter what type of cutting head, are visible when finished and certainly not a sign of good craftsmanship.
Roger

[Steven J Corpstein]

I don't necessarily run the jointed face through the planer, but it happens more often than not. However when making furniture every surface that has been surfaced by a power jointer or planer does get surfaced by a hand plane, or sometimes sandpaper. Milling marks from a power jointer or power planer, no matter what type of cutting head, are visible when finished and certainly not a sign of good craftsmanship.
Roger

I'm with Roger, I hit them with a hand plane or at the very least a card scraper. I tend to try and not use sandpaper if I'm going to use any finishes with color, as I think the grain looks muddy compared to coloring a piece that was planed or scraped. I find this particularly so if I'm using water based dyes.

[Chris Tsutsui]

Correct me if i'm wrong but I didn't think spiral head jointers produced a ready to stain surface. The only tools i've seen produce a "perfect" surface is a finely tuned hand plane that produces a flat glossy surface.

I've seen some woodworkers use a drum sander like it was part of the milling process. I don't have a drum sander so I joint and plane, then hand sand.

I got mill marks with every planer I have owned, Makita, Delta, and Hammer. I wonder if it's cheating to do the milling with machines, then a final pass with a hand plane, and call it hand planed...

I will probably always use a card scraper to clean up mill marks. You get a clean surface and remove minimal material. Sears was closing out Footprint brand products so I stocked up on some more scrapers.

[Peter Quinn]

I put a spiral head in my jointer first. Works great. So I put a spiral head in my planer too. Works great too! But for a while there I had HSS straight knives in the planer and shelix jointer, no problem for me. I generally try to remove jointer marks with the planer, but its not always possible nor is it critical. It used to depend on the relative condition of the knives in each machine. If the jointer knives were fresh but the planer on its last legs, the jointer surface quality was better. If the planer was fresh, all else being equal, the power fed action leaves a pretty nice surface in standard grain species. Now there are other factors, like feed speed depth of cut to consider too. I can reduce the depth of cut on my jointer to 1/64", make a very slow pass, and have surface on maple that looks like glass. Or I can increase the depth to an 1/8", push real fast, and have a surface that looks like a lunar landing. So the planer is typically more consistent, but not necessarily better in all cases. Either machine creates what qualifies in my mind as a "surfaced" quality to the wood versus rough lumber. Neither, shelix heads included, creates a surface ready for finish.

I would suggest that its a good experience to use a straight knife planer and jointer when starting out. They as well as hand planes will teach you how to read the grain of a piece of wood to minimize tearout or defects. With the spiral heads grain is far less important, thought not irrelevant. I still inspect and stack a pile of parts instinctively for proper grain orientation relative to cutter rotation even with spiral heads. Its a skill that helps at the shaping stage too, whether shaping by hand, router or shaper. Ever pet a cat backwards? They don't like it and neither does wood!