Jointing, sawing, planing - proper order

[Brad Wood]

Hi,
It looks like my garage will shortly become fully equipped with the basic machines to mill my own stock (jointer and planer).

I searched for this first but didn't come up with a clear answer..

What is the proper procedure for preparing stock?

Joint an edge, joint a face, rip opposite edge, plane opposite face?

also - if you are jointing a face or edge that has got a curve or bow to it, which edge/face should be jointed? bow up or bow down?

If you are working with lots of stock, how do you keep track of everything? Do you do one stick all the way through the process until it is straight, then go to the next stick? Or do you joint all the edges, the joint all the faces, then rip, then plane? (this could be a personal preference question). It makes sense to me to do the later, but then how do you keep track of which edge was done? ... put a chalk mark on the opposite edge?

Thanks for your input and any other info you might find useful.

- Brad

[Joe Jensen]

I've been at this hobby for 30 years and once I got a planer and a jointer I was able to improve the quality of my work dramatically by getting the stock truely flat and straight.

Here is what I do
1) I only buy rough sawn lumber, or lumber that is at least 15/16" thick so I have enough thickness to work with. If I need longer pieces, I'm picky about how flat the lumber is when I buy.
2) I rough cut the parts to length and wide, keeping them 1/4" long, and wide enough to straighten, sometimes only 1/8" for shorter pieces, but for longer pieces, it can be 1/2" wide. I only prep, and then rip multiple pieces from a surfaced board if the end parts are too small to safely joint and plane. I also try to use the most warped portions of the rough boards for the shortest parts.
3) I flatten one side with the jointer. Many will argue, but the experts say you can only truely flatten a board that is 2X the length of your infeed table. I'd say this matches my experience. I've done a lot of parts longer than 2X the 26" infeed table of my old PM60 jointer, but they were rarely ever truely flat.
4) I then go to the planer and thickness the board. I try to keep a mental note of how much I removed with the jointer, and I true to make sure the total removed by jointing and planing is the same for each side. This minimizes movement due to moisture level differences at different depths in the board.
5) I then joint on edge flat.
6) I then rip to width on the TS
7) I then cut first one end square, and then cut to length.

Since doing the work this way, I haven't used a belt sander to flatten a glue up. If you have a wide drum sander or a wide belt sander you can not worry about any of that. Commercial shops glue up door panels by using a straight line rip saw to rip to width, and after gluing up the warped boards they run them through 20-30HP wide belt sander to flatten them.

Also, my workflow kind of dictates separate jointer and planer. If I had a combo machine I'd have to change over a ton, or change how I prep.

[Jason Beam]

You can't joint an edge without a flat face ... You want your edges square with your faces ... here's how I do it:

1. Joint a face.
2. Plane the other face.
3. Joint an edge.
4. Rip to width.

I may rip to rough width on the bandsaw first. I may also cut to rough length first so I lose less wood.

My process does mean trips back and forth, but the benefit is grain direction. In order to avoid tear out, I need to be able to account for grain direction. If I just joint the face, I only have two ways to feed the board to joint one of the edges. If the grain direction is not cooperating with me that day, it means I may be stuck with tear out. However, if I plane the other face first, now I have two parallel faces from which I can edge joint. That gives me FOUR options and will almost always allow me to handle the grain direction - some boards flip direction on ya half way into the board, but that's all the more reason to have options, in my opinion.

I'm not lookin' to get after something so fast that I'd be willing to sacrifice the options. It's worth it to me, and I got plenty of time for taking a trip between the jointer and the planer. Besides, they should be positioned fairly close to one another anyway! :)

EDIT: More info - i finally read everything you asked. I put the bow UP - that is, i ride on the edges, not in the middle. You don't want the board rocking on you if you can help it. Orient the piece such that it has as many contact points as possible.

Process - Keeping track is a matter of habit and routine. A stick of chalk comes in real handy here. First, I lay all my boards that need milling together.

When jointing, I get each operation complete on a board-by-board basis - that is, I run the board through until the surface I'm working on is through. Then I go to the next board. But with Planing, I leave the setting of the planer where it is for all my boards. They all get run through at once with the same setting. I call it "batch processing" - this is easier for my brain since I can concentrate on one operation for the entire stack of boards at a time. It's also more accurate since I'm not changing setups between boards. The idea is not to switch operations if I can help it. It's a little head-scratchy at first, but the routine settles in real quickly.

I'll elaborate on the whole process a bit..

Joint one face: Grab board, pick grain direction, run through, check, run through, check ... repeat until face is good .. Scribble some chalk on that face and grab the next board, repeat. Once the entire stack of boards has been face jointed, it's off to the planer.

Plane opposite face: Set the planer to take a little off. Grab a board, flip and pick grain direction, run through. Now grab the next board and do the same. When all boards have been run through, move the planer head down a little to take a deeper cut and repeat the process. You may have a few boards that don't get touched and a few that do - this is fine, just keep going until they all reach your desired thickness. When complete, you will have an entire stack of boards the exact same thickness. Now it's back to the jointer...

Joint one edge: Same as jointing a face - just grab a board and get it right. Once you've got a square edge, I mark the corner that is perfect - that is, the face that was on the fence and the edge I just jointed have a line connecting them (wrapped around the corner, so to speak). This tells me my reference faces - if all is setup correctly it will be square on both faces, though and won't matter much which face you reference for further operations. Grab the next board and repeat.

[glenn bradley]

It is personal preference to some degree. I think everyone joints a face first as that becomes your reference surface for the other steps. I do it almost like Jason:

1. Joint a face.
2. Place the jointed face against the fence and joint an edge.
3. Plane to thickness.
4. Rip to width.
5. Crosscut to length.

P.s. Bow up, like a bridge and I use chalk to mark my pieces for identification; stile 1, rail 2, etc. When milling I use a carpenter's pencil to mark the surface that has NOT been machined yet. I tend to do all faces, all first edge, all thicknessing and then other cuts for width and length. I do always try to do widths, lengths or "whatevers" that are the same during the same machine setup. that way the same settings and/or stops can be used and it speeds things along.

[Andy Pratt]

Brad,

I think everything said in the last two posts is the best method for producing the highest surface quality on boards, using standard knives. I'll list my method, which is different since I'm using a jointer/planer combo, and because I have a helical carbide cutterhead:

Rough cut stock to length and width - bandsaw or jigsaw and chop saw

Joint one face of board bow or cup facing down (in an exaggerated form it would be like putting the letter "U" upside down on the jointer). It gets tricky if the board is bowed and cupped, or has twist, then you need to use wedges under it on the infeed side, or develop a really good hand for it (which I don't have).

Joint one edge of board making sure previously jointed face is flat along the fence. This is where I differ from the above methods for two reasons: 1) I don't want to switch between functions on the j/p 2) with a spiral head, I can't tell the difference in cut quality

Plane the opposite face of the board, I run each board through on the same thickness before changing the setting. This is especially important on the last run through of each board, to make sure all are exactly the same thickness. For this, and face planing I don't need to make sure I'm feeding in the correct direction, as there is no appreciable difference if you get the grain direction wrong with the helical carbide head.

Rip to width on the tablesaw

If your stock is truly rough, with visible milling marks all over it, you won't need to worry too much about marking sides, as it will be obvious. If the stock has been planed or ripped already, it's a good idea to mark the jointed corner as was previously mentioned. I learned this the hard way after knocking over a big pile of wood that was all laying jointed-face-down and having to recheck every board before I planed them.

Hope this helps,
Andy

[Rod Sheridan]

I also have a jointer/planer however it has straight knives.

I joint one face and one edge then plane to thickness.

I then rip to wider than width and edge plane it to finished dimension if it's stock that won't be glued up to make a table top for example.

If I'm making a tabletop, I joint the ripped edge prior to gluing up.

Regards, Rod.

[Brad Wood]

wow - what a wealth of information. Thanks so far to everyone.

Once I receive the machines (coming from Grizz and should arrive next week), will the setup instructions get me going, or are there some other references I should rely on for getting everything tuned properly?

For example - I found the Timberwolf band saw blade web site has some great info on general band saw use / care / etc.

thanks

[Andy Pratt]

Brad,

The biggest thing I would check with setup is to make sure that your jointer cutterhead is exactly level with your outfeed table, and that your jointer tables are coplanar. You need a good quality straight edge to do the first and two accruate squares (bigger the better) to do the second. I did these to what seemed very close to perfect on my first set up (standard jointer a while ago) and had a heck of a time not being able to joint boards properly. I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong and was getting very frustrated. After asking on here, I rechecked these two things and found that my cutterhead was a little high (barely noticeable with the straightedge, but it was there) and that solved the problem entirely. I didn't have a problem with coplanar but from what I understand it can be just as big a frustration.

Andy

[Brad Wood]

I've seen adds in variety of places regarding jointer setup jigs - are they worth the investment (something like $60'ish dollars)

[Jason Beam]

The only jointer knife jig I consider worthwhile is the OneWay MultiGauge. It's a hunk of cast iron that holds a dial indicator. Works PERFECTLY for setting jointer knives if they've got jack screw under them (most modern ones do, i think).

You could just as easily make the cast iron part out of wood and a couple rare earth magnets, too. The trick with the dial indicator is having a flat "foot" on it. :)

[Brian W Evans]

Here's a video on how to mill stock:

http://woodtreks.com/mill-dimension-rough-lumber-steps-process-length-width-thickness/1020/


Also, to help set your jointer knives, there are numerous threads on SMC. Many have links to how-to videos and guides. Take some time and check them out. Don't buy a jig before you do.

[Doug Shepard]

When I'm breaking down boards into parts I usually have the jointer and TS rolled out with a rip blade on the TS. Crosscutting (oversized) gets handled by a Shark saw. The more you can cut to length first, the less jointing you have to do. I'm usually making decisions based on color and grain match, available board widths vs part widths, same with lengths, etc. So I never find myself able to stay with a standard sequence. I'm constantly bouncing back and forth between the 3 steps based on what I have and what I need. Planing is typically later. The initial rripping is all done a hair oversized though. I tend to gang plane final widths with boards on edge so that parts needing the same width come out identical. Then I do final crosscutting to length.