Jointing my Menard's Straight Edge

[Paul Simmel]

Knives after passes. Note: the nick you see is outside where jointing occurred. I set the fence inside of the nick (about the only 1" area left on my poor knives which **don't** have nicks.)

Sraightedge05.jpg

Jointed straight edge.

Sraightedge06.jpg

The whole reason this started... the 4' x 6' torsion box... which I thought was 010 off because of the warped SE. The box appears to be dead on... not even a piece of paper can slip under the Menard's **straight** edge.

Sraightedge07.jpg

[Dave Verstraete]

Paul

Thanks for the update.

A for execution

A+ for persistence

[Joe Chritz]

As with all things shop related if it worked and you can still count to ten then all is well.

I would be interested to test that on a precision surface. I'm curious how accurate you can joint a piece. The mechanical accuracy has to be pretty good I bet, judging from the pic.

Joe

[Chris Padilla]

Awesome and congrats!! You also have a nice flat piece of plywood!

[Loren Hedahl]

It is just not going to work.

It will cause your jointer knives to melt and the molten knives will cause your jointer to explode.

The heat will burn your arms and you will have a huge hospital bill.

Add to that your straight edge will not be as straight as it was in the beginning.

Interesting, there is no risk in advising negatively, unless you do it after the operation was successful.

So I'll say it again: "IT JUST ISN'T GOING TO WORK!!!!"

Heh, heh, heh, heh.

[Gary Keedwell]

It is just not going to work.

It will cause your jointer knives to melt and the molten knives will cause your jointer to explode.

The heat will burn your arms and you will have a huge hospital bill.

Add to that your straight edge will not be as straight as it was in the beginning.

Interesting, there is no risk in advising negatively, unless you do it after the operation was successful.

So I'll say it again: "IT JUST ISN'T GOING TO WORK!!!!"

Heh, heh, heh, heh.

Couldn't help myself.

Gary

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

HA HA HA That is soo funny.

Glad it worked out for ya.

how's the finish?

[Paul Simmel]

The finish is good. Little knife marks same as you’d see on wood after jointing or planing. Nice and shiny, too. And just like a crowner-up board, you can watch the ends getting hit first. A few passes later, the whole thing is nice and flat.

The straight edge is as flat as my jointer can make something flat. Chris is correct about the plywood!

Re the router table suggestion, I don’t think that I could have gotten a flatter edge on the RT, due to the limited length of a shorter split fence. I actually don’t have a RT. I have a shaper, and I could have put a spiral bit in it and done it that way, but the bed on the jointer is much longer and much flatter and the whole operation was much faster. I’m not concerned about the knife marks (compared to a perfectly milled smooth surface), because, it lays flat.

This whole process was an absolute riot. I certainly wouldn’t compare my edge to a $150 precision tool milled out of the highest grade of steel, but my edge is very much straighter than what I had, and for my immediate needs it will more than suffice.

There was, IMO, absolutely no danger in what I did. Screwing the SE to a piece of ¾” ply made it very easy to feed in a very stable way. The knives on a jointer naturally pull the work piece downward, and so there would have possibly been some flex had it not been screwed to something more ridged. Also, I took but a hair off per pass… lessening the pull and hence the possible flex. If I hadn’t done this, I’d wager there’d still be a hair’s bit of a crown, no matter how many times I ran it through, due to the pulling motion.

I do not own that precision tool to use as a reference, and the bed on my jointer is but 32” long. I don’t know how the bed of my jointer would reference out measured against the precision tool, either. All I know is that the SE is as flat as my jointer can make something flat.

I apologize if I offended anyone earlier. I had no specific person in mind. This is just my hang up. It’s something that bothers **me**, sometimes. And to be fair, it’s not only here. No one is perfect, I the least. I just get impatient, especially when I’m focused on something that is in the works. So let’s call it my problem, and something I will need to work on.

Have a pleasant evening, everyone.

[Joe Jensen]

Paul, glad it worked out. I didn't go on record, so there is no personal risk here now for me, but I thought it was a decent idea. I've done a fair amount of aluminum with a router and been happy. On the other hand, in College I built a set of amazing speakers for a customer ($3500 in 1982) that were veneered in rosewood and stainless steel. I used like 10 carbide router bits trimming the stainless flush with the edges

Worked fine except for the tiny red hot pieces of stainless landing all over me. I switched into welding clothes and hat and finished up. Not something I'd do again, but I did a lot later with brass and aluminum with no worreis...joe