face jointing wide boards

[Prashun Patel]

I have a benchtop planer and no jointer. I'm saving up for a good wide jointer. I've read you can make a planer sled to allow face jointing on a planer. I found a shortcut way to do it that might help some people:

I had a 2" thick x 12" wide piece of 42" long walnut that was warped about 1/4 corner to corner.

I cut a piece of 3/4" melamine shelving that was 13" wide and about 72" long. I put that into the planer and set the planer to about 2.75". I supported the 'sled' along it's entire length and screwed it to the bench.

Then I put the walnut on my assembly table and taped shims to the bottom until it was wobblefree. Then I scribbled pencil on the top of the board leaving marks at the corners especially.

I ran the piece thru the planer shim-side-down, adjusted the depth of cut to take 1/16" off and ran it through repeatedly lowering until all the pencil marks were done.

Flipped it, removed the shims, scribbled the other side, then ran it through repeatedly until all the pencil was gone.

Came out perfectly. Easy peezy.

[Rick Thom]

I use this system quite a bit, and it works. If your board isn't too warped, say 1/8" or so, you can forgo the shims and use a good shot of hot melt glue in it's place. Just identify the corner (s) needing to be supported , give them a good shot of hot melt under those corners, let it cool down and harden. Now you've got good support and the board is lightly affixed to the sled. When you've got the top planed flat, just pop the board off the sled and peel off the hot melt glue with a putty knife.