Stock Prep - Stock Wider Than Your Jointer

[George Bokros]

In the May 2012 Wood magazine there was an article about a method to flatten stock wider than your jointer. Basically you make a pass or two on your jointer then double sided tape it to a piece of flat stock and surface the side opposite the side you ran on the jointer until it is flat then remove it from the flat stock and surface the other side.

I have attached below a scan of the article. Have any of you done this and if so how did it work out? If you have not done this what are your opinions / thoughts about its viability. What problems do you think there may be doing this.

Scan0002.jpg
Thanks

George

[William C Rogers]

George

i have done this when I had my 6 inch jointer. To do this you must remove the jointer guard. So there is obvious safety considerations. I used a piece of Baltic plywood as the sled about 6 1/2 inches wide and 1/2 inch thick (longer than the work piece). It works fine for about 2 inches beyond the jointer width. I probably did up to 3 inches. I did a lot of boards this way before I got my 13 inch jointer.

The number one thing is you have the guard removed and safety doing this. Kind of surprised me that this method was put into print.

Bill

[Mark Wooden]

Works fine.

[Jeff Bartley]

George- This works well, however, I've found that in the cases where I needed to do this it's faster for me to make a pass on the jointer then take the board to my bench (which is two steps away) and use a course-set handplane to take down the ridge left by the jointer. This method lets you take small bites with the jointer and decreases the chance of tare-out.
I don't like to exceed my jointers capacity by much, like no more than 7" on a 6" jointer. For wider stock I just handplane it or use a sled in the planer. More times than not I just use handplanes......for me handplanes are much faster than setting up the sled, plus I love handplanes! (am I in the wrong forum??!)

[George Bokros]

Thanks for the reply's everyone. I would never exceed the width of my jointer by more than 3 to 3 1/2"". Most times my stock is not much wider than 9". Wish I had a wider jointer but that is not in the cards.

Only one time was I able to purchase stock at 10" to 12" wide. That time I ran it on the jointer from one end the fliped end for end and ran the un-jointed side until I had it flattened. I still had a ridge but I ran it in the planner until the other side was flattened then ran the jointed side. Luckily I had thickness enough and the piece wasn't to out of flat to start with. Lot of the stock I have purchased lately is at least skip planned so it is relatively flat and i just run on the planer.

George

[Matt Day]

I've done it many times and it works. I simply attached a small cleat to the front of the plywood instead of double stick tape.

[Frank Drew]

I ran [the board] on the jointer from one end the flipped end for end and ran the un-jointed side until I had it flattened. I still had a ridge but I ran it in the planner until the [unjointed face] was flattened then ran the jointed side.

I never used the method from the magazine article but did use this method a fair amount with fine results, and it was much quicker than using a sled of some sort for the initial passes through the surface planer and worked for boards up to just under twice your jointer's cutterhead capacity (if the board wasn't too heavy to handle).

[glenn bradley]

This method works. I found a planer sled more convenient and repeatable.

[John Downey]

I do this often, but without the second board and tape. My planer is a bit heavier than the usual lunchbox style though, so maybe that is why I don't need the board. Instead I just surface the jointed face as soon as I have the opposite face down to a good planed surface - as long as the two surfaces formed by the jointer are co-planar, that little step doesn't cause any problems.

[Jerry Thompson]

I must be missing something. I one runs a 10'' board through an 8'' jointer I would have 2'' left to joint. If I run the 2'' over the jointer I would have to swap ends meaning I would be going against the grain. Is this correct? If it is, it would seem one would have tear out.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

It works, but why not rip the board to match the jointer, then glue it back together? If done right, you'll never see the glue line, even if you know where it is. It's a lot faster too.

[John Downey]

Yes you do have to face joint against the grain some. I'm usually only taking a 1/32" or maybe a 1/16" though, so it's not too hard to avoid problems. The idea is to take of the bare minimum to get it flat enough to surface the other side, then run the jointed face through a couple passes in the planer. Might have some trouble with maple, but everything else I've tried has gone fine, even African mahogany.

The factory solution is to rip and re-glue. In my shop that would take longer than just doing what I do, this method is hardly slower than face jointing a board narrow enough for the jointer.

[lowell holmes]

I believe you run the board through a lunchbox planer after the flat board is stuck to the wide board. I've used this method frequently.

Look at the graphic in the original post.

[Matt Day]

I must be missing something. I one runs a 10'' board through an 8'' jointer I would have 2'' left to joint. If I run the 2'' over the jointer I would have to swap ends meaning I would be going against the grain. Is this correct? If it is, it would seem one would have tear out.

Jerry - that's not quite right if I'm understanding you correctly. After you run the 10" board over the 8" jointer and have the 2" left, you then go to the PLANER and put a piece of say 1/2" mdf in place of where the 8" has been jointed. After you run the board through and plane the full 10" side (opposite the side you jointed), then you flip the board over and put it back through the planer to plane the last 2". So you're at the jointer 1 time, and the planer 2 times and can go with the grain each time.

If this is for a "show" piece like a table top, I'd much rather use this method than rip it and reglue it. It's really not any slower than ripping it, and if you're ripping a wide board you have to do so on a rough sawn board.

[David Kumm]

Several old large jointers, Oliver, Porter, and some others came with a swing away guard. You set the fence to joint just over half the board and then flipped it and jointed the other half. If the jointer was set right you could joint a 30" board and barely tell that it took two passes. Most boards today change grain a couple of times over their length and a 5" head and sharp knives result in so little tearout that the planer or sander doesn't need a big bite. Works pretty well. Dave