Surfacing short blocks on jointer

[Chris Barnett]

Need to surface all sides of some 4 in x 4 in x 2 in wood blocks. Thought the jointer would work (first time use of new Grizzly 8 inch helical head) but think such short surfaces might be a problem. Not looking for absolute square but more for smoothing the surface before adding finish. Having never used this large a jointer before, and before I tread blindly, any suggestions? Blocks are Af mahogany, lacewood, and bubinga. Have disc and orbital pad sanders but that is a lot of dust and work that I thought could be bypassed. Also have a large planer but do not want to spend the time making a sled...don't have the time to make a sled.
Chris

[John Harden]

That's too small of a board to pass over the jointer without a mechanical means of holding it. Martin/Felder sells a tool that could be used, but it's spendy and made for use with a shaper. Nevertheless, it would work.

I'd suggest making a wood clamping jig that will securely hold the wood.

Not saying you couldn't do it by hand with a push block, just that I personally wouldn't recommend it.

Regards,

John

[Bob Vavricka]

Chris,
Don't try it on your jointer, you need to find another way to achieve what you want. I use 10" as the minimum length piece you can safely run on a jointer. You have to have enough length that you can keep the board from tipping into the thoat opening of your jointer both as you start and finish the cut and 4" won't allow it. Do a dry run with the jointer turned off and I think you will see what I am talking about.
Can you leave your boards longer to joint and then cut them down to size?
Bob V.

[Stephen Edwards]

This is a very dangerous operation to attempt without some kind of holding device for the small pieces. The only major accident I ever had with woodworking tools occurred while attempting something very similar to this without using a safety device.

I wouldn't attempt it.

[george wilson]

When I was young I had the heck kicked out of the palm of my hand twice from running too short of pieces on a jointer. Knocked a hole in my palm each time.

[John Coloccia]

This is one of those times when I can hear my wife's voice quite clearly in my head....

"Now Johnny, before you do something I want you to imagine a stop sign in your head and I want to you think about it one more time before you do it".

I thought about it again, and it's still a bad idea. You obviously imagined the stop sign too, hence your post. LOL.

On the bright side, the lacewood may have given you trouble on the jointer. It always gives me trouble at any rate. I always get chipping or tear out. I certainly never end up with a ready to finish board. My preference would be scraping over sanding if the blocks are in decent shape. It's a little tricky on the lacewood because of the softer bits, but I've gotten pretty good results.

Just be careful with the lacewood because of the potential allergic reactions.

[glenn bradley]

As everyone (including your owner's manual) have said. Those pieces are too short for the jointer. Joint the piece and then cut off the blocks or use belt sander with a table or a hand belt sander clamped so you can use the platen as a small table. I would imagine you will still launch a few so make some extras ;-)

[Chris Barnett]

Thought I could do it although the block was short, but I defer to greater experience and will not attempt. Now to the hand plane and followed up by sanding., unless I can figure out a simple fixture to hold these blocks. They are already cut so using longer lengths is not an option. Thanks for comments. And thanks for comment on lacewood....I did not know that.

[Mike Cruz]

The Jointer is one of those tools that ALWAYS has my undivided attention. Not that others don't, but even more so on this machine. Why?

As my old boss said to me once...

With a table saw, they can sew you finger back on...if they can find it.
BUT watch out for the Jointer...
You can't make potatos out of potato chips!

I can only hope that that saying sticks in everyone's head as permanently as it did in mine.

DO NOT run 4" pieces through the Jointer. They are too short. If the pieces are already cut, then sand them. If not, run longer pieces (8, 12, 16 inches) and cut them to length later. Okay, okay, I'll correct that. 8 1/8, 12 1/4, 16 3/8 inches...

[Rick Fisher]

Anything under about 18" .. I just use the edge sander to flatten.. Its close enough and much safer..

End of the day, its just a piece of wood.. not worth taking a big risk..

[Lee Schierer]

I won't run anything over any jointer that is not 5-6 times longer than the gap in the middle of the jointer between the two tables and even then I would use a push stick to help guide the piece and keep my fingers and hands out of harm's way. Short pieces are prone to tipping as they go into the cutter if they are not controlled properly. A 4" piece is way too short.

[David Prince]

You could make a wooden jig to hold the block in place to run it over the jointer knives. Build the jig with enough real estate on it to sacrifice part of its wood to give you a larger working piece. Take your passes one side at a time so that the jig shrinks at the same rate as the blocks.

[Mike Delyster]

Chris:

The hand plane sounds much safer, they are small pieces they won't take long at all to plane by hand.

Mike

[Kent A Bathurst]

I don't know your application, but I have done this: Double-faced tape, attach it squarely to a piece of plywood, and cut the edges on the CMS. ALigned properly, and with a good blade, you will get what you need, within sanding-block cleanup tolerances.


Or - can you joint a long piece, then cut it to length on the CMS?

[John Thompson]

Your pieces are 4" tall and 2" thick. Clamp a 12" aluminum bar clamp securely half way up from the bottom of the live stock on one side. Then clamp another with the exposed handle facing the other way on the other side. You now have two extentions of un-used bar clamp bar that total around 20" long as handles.

Now... take your 4" long x 4" tall pieces which now have 10" handles to grasp on each side to the jointer. Lower the blade and make a few practice passes to get the feel of the balance. Raise the blade and surface the pieces faces and edges. Do not.. repeat do not surface the end grain on your jointer.

If you have a vertical belt sander.. skip all this and use it on all sides.

Good luck and have a good day....