To camber or not

[Joel Goodman]

I have a #7 that I use for flattening as well as jointing. I have a slight camber on the iron to avoid ridges. Is this a bad idea for a jointer -- would I be better off with a second iron dead straight for jointing?

[John Dykes]

In my opinion, a cambered blade is necessary for a jointer. I'm not a big fan of the "bookmatched" jointed edges trick. I take the time to make sure that the jointed edge is truly square to the face. And in my opinion, the best way to accomplish this task is with a cambered blade.

I take comfort in the fact that many well known craftsman and authors advocate this method.

[Doug Shepard]

I always figured for flattening that I'd be going over the surface with a smoother later anyway and dont think you'd want any camber for jointing so I've never put any on jointer irons.

[Robert Rozaieski]

Really a personal choice and depends on how yuou like to work. I have two planes, one, a try plane, with a cambered iron that I use for flattening faces and planing edges when I need to have an edge perfectly square. My jointer on the other hand has a straight iron as I only use the jointer to prepare surfaces that will be joined in an edge joint to make a wider panel. For these joints I like a perfectly flat glue surface and therefore I use a straight iron. I do match plane my edge joints and I find that a straight iron is better for match planing. I don't like match planing with a cambered iron.