Will my stock feeder/jointer idea work???

[Johnnyy Johnson]

Every time I dream up an idea that will result in my gluing up perfect boards, some them fails. (some times I get lucky) Here is my latest idea. I have a 15“ Delta Planner and a 6” Delta jointer. I just bought the 10” Grizzly P/J combo. I hope to get it set up this weekend. I only need the jointer section. The new Grizzly is almost the same height as my shaper table. I plan to set the jointer beside the shaper table and swing the 1 hp Delta stocker feeder around to feed the board through the jointer for face jointing. I know that if I allow the feeder head to apply to much pressure it will push the cup flat going through and the result will be no better that running it through my planer. I will only allow the feeder head to contact the board on the out feed table and only apply enough downward pressure to push the board through with an even travel rate. If the board is badly cupped, I could run it a few passes with push blocks to get close and then switch to the stock feeder for the final pass. Then complete the boards both sides in the planer. I feel like it should work perfect in most cases. As far as edge jointing I gave up on the 6” jointer long ago. I now use a ½” straight bit on my shaper table and feed through with the stock feeder. It gives me a perfect edge with no marks where I stopped while pushing the board through like on the jointer. Now I just have to get both faces parallel to one another. Has anyone tried to face joint with a stock feeder, what were the results?

Thanks
JJ

[Rod Sheridan]

Yes, stock feeders on jointers aren't that rare, when I worked in industry we ran a lot of material that way.

People just aren't built to push stock 8 hours per shift.

At home I've swung the feeder off the shaper and used on it on the table saw and the jointer.

Euro combination machines are built from the factory to use the feeder on the saw, shaper and jointer.

I sold my General stand alone planer when I bought the combo, the planer in it was superior to the General.

Regards, Rod.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Sure, like Rod said, it works well. I do it on my Felder whenever I'm face jointing. The feeder can put some pretty high force on the jointer, so make sure everything is anchored together or to the floor. No need to take some hand passes either, the feeder will work better for those too. It's also nice to not have the stop/start issue to deal with like you mentioned with the edge jointing. It takes the potential for error caused by bad technique out of the equation too.

[Scott T Smith]

Johnny, I have done exactly what you're asking about.

In my instance, I have an equipment "island" consisting of a 5 hp shaper, a 16" combo jointer/planer, and a 17" bandsaw. These three machines make up a triangle, with the shaper being back to back with the outfeed side of the jointer. A 1 hp power feeder is mounted in the back right corner of the top of the shaper, and is situated so that I can swing it over to the jointer.

I had to anchor the shaper to the floor, as the force of the power feeder tended to move it around. The combination works very well.

Let me know if you'd like to see some pix.

Scott

[Johnnyy Johnson]

Scot....Yes please, a picture would help alot. My shaper is a 3 hp delta and the feeder is mounted on the out feed side of the fence at the corner.

[Rick Fisher]

Its such a good idea that there are feeders made specifically for Jointers..

I think sunhill machinery imports a Jointer feeder..

So long as the pressure is over the outfeed, you should be okay.. it might change the way the board is processed, but the end result will be the same..

[Brad Shipton]

Co-matic is the manuf of the jointer feeder that Sunhill imports. You can find a bit more info about it on their site. I do not have one, but I have used my 3 wheel PF quite a bit when jointing and I can see the advantage to the jointer specific feeder. It has a single wheel that is spiked. It looks to make a lot of sense and they are not really all that expensive if you are doing a lot.

The problem I always seem to have with my PF on the jointer is I do not adjust the down pressure or wheel locations enough as the stock thickness changes. My yield always goes down, but it sure makes the job easier.

Brad

[J.R. Rutter]

I ran feedes on jointers for years, both edge and face jointing. Definitely run all wheels on the outfeed. You can even use shims or strategically placed sawdust piles under the board on the infeed side to finesse tricky boards.

[Scott T Smith]

Johnny, here are some photos of my setup. The power feeder is typically used on the slowest or second slowest speed.

Scott

[Glen Butler]

Hmm. now you have got my cobwebs churning. I would love to use my feeder on the jointer. Facing a thousand pieces for cabinet doors becomes a chore. We are rearranging the shop tomorrow, and I am going to see if i can get the feeder close to the jointer.

Good thread.

[Jeff Duncan]

OK so the question is how many hours are you really going to spend on the jointer to make this worthwhile? I don't disagree with the previous posters who support the idea.....for long duration sessions at the jointer. But if your problem is not being able to get good glue-ups, my guess is this won't be the fix. Getting a good glue-up is a very simple and straightforward procedure, assuming your machines are well tuned. My suggestion would be to first work on your jointer technique before spending a lot of time trying to rig up this contraption.
I do this for a living and I wouldn't even consider putting a feeder on my jointer for the amount of stock I run through it. And I have an extra feeder sitting around just waiting for a purpose. It wouldn't be worth the effort of setting it up and then moving it every time I have a different size material to run through. Keep it simple take 2 boards, joint both edges, put them together and see if they straight. If not, no amount of automation is going to fix the problem.
good luck and happy holidays!
JeffD

[Steve Rozmiarek]

OK so the question is how many hours are you really going to spend on the jointer to make this worthwhile? I don't disagree with the previous posters who support the idea.....for long duration sessions at the jointer. But if your problem is not being able to get good glue-ups, my guess is this won't be the fix. Getting a good glue-up is a very simple and straightforward procedure, assuming your machines are well tuned. My suggestion would be to first work on your jointer technique before spending a lot of time trying to rig up this contraption.
I do this for a living and I wouldn't even consider putting a feeder on my jointer for the amount of stock I run through it. And I have an extra feeder sitting around just waiting for a purpose. It wouldn't be worth the effort of setting it up and then moving it every time I have a different size material to run through. Keep it simple take 2 boards, joint both edges, put them together and see if they straight. If not, no amount of automation is going to fix the problem.
good luck and happy holidays!
JeffD

Jeff, this works for face jointing. I do it becase it is far more consistant than I can usually be, which yields a better surface generally. The original reason that I tried it was that on my machine, a full combo Felder CF741, the feeder is always right there, and I was just goofing around with it. I also use the feeder on the shaper, and sometimes the saw.

I've always thought that if you where going to get bit by a jointer, it would be during face jointing. Your hands are closer, and a slip of a pushblock would do the trick. The feeder mitigates that, as well as make the process a bit more fun, IMHO.

[Scott T Smith]

OK so the question is how many hours are you really going to spend on the jointer to make this worthwhile? I don't disagree with the previous posters who support the idea.....for long duration sessions at the jointer. But if your problem is not being able to get good glue-ups, my guess is this won't be the fix. Getting a good glue-up is a very simple and straightforward procedure, assuming your machines are well tuned. My suggestion would be to first work on your jointer technique before spending a lot of time trying to rig up this contraption.
I do this for a living and I wouldn't even consider putting a feeder on my jointer for the amount of stock I run through it. And I have an extra feeder sitting around just waiting for a purpose. It wouldn't be worth the effort of setting it up and then moving it every time I have a different size material to run through. Keep it simple take 2 boards, joint both edges, put them together and see if they straight. If not, no amount of automation is going to fix the problem.
good luck and happy holidays!
JeffD


Jeff, I think that you may have misunderstood the use of the power feeder. I do not use the power feeder for edge jointing; I concur with you that it would be a waste of time and effort.

I use it for face jointing boards. I often work with wide rough sawn boards ( 10" - 16" face QSO), and it usually requires multiple passes through the jointer to flatten one face. The time and effort saved by using the power feeder have more than offset the time that it took to install it.

Additionally, I've found that the quality of the end product has improved because of the consistent pressure applied on the board at the outfeed table, immediately adjacent to the cutterhead.

Pivoting it up and out of the way only takes a few seconds.

[Ben Abate]

Scott,

I do it all the time, It's almost impossible to handle very wide and large boards without using a power feeder. I have found that it does such a nice job that I usually don't face joint without it. Just make sure you set the height and the position it on the outfeed table and not over the cutter head and you will have great results. I have a Felder AD 751 which is a 20 inch jointer/planner it works like a charm. I attached a few pictures so you could see how I did it.

take care
Ben

[Jeff Duncan]

Scott, I realize we're talking about face jointing, but for the way I mill stock it wouldn't make sense. I also run RSWO face stock up to 15" wide and 8' long, (lots of passage doors), and then I run one edge. I adjust my tables frequently as I go to try and get from rough to flat in 2-3 passes at most. With a feeder I'd have to face everything in one shot, then move the feeder and go through the whole stack again to hit the edges. Of course if I had the budget or room for a SLR I may change my mind;)
That was really my point though, that for small shops it may not be worth the hassle when your constantly going back and forth between facing and edge jointing and different thicknesses of stock. Though it sounds like some of you guys have made it work for you so...different strokes....:D
good luck,
JeffD

[Rick Fisher]

Found it ... I had a pic..

http://i335.photobucket.com/albums/m455/jokerbird_photo/Tool%20photos%20not%20mine/Jointmate.jpg

Sunhill machinery sells them.. I think they are made by Co-matic in Taiwan..

[Johnnyy Johnson]

Jeff...I would think that one adjustment would result in being able to run several boards through. Since in most cases there may not be a few 32"'s difference. I would expect that by trial and error one could reach a happy medium of about + 3/32 -3/32. Also, I see your point if the boards were cupped. Guess I have some learning coming up.

[J.R. Rutter]

You can take multiple passes with the feeder. When I used one, I set the infeed so that I could get maybe 75% of the parts in one pass, but there was enough thickness left to run a second pass as needed. The key is to run the low corner into the feeder, and use a little sliver of wood of big pinch of sawdust under the high corner on the trailing end to prevent rocking. Then make a second pass. The 5% or less of parts that couldn't be flattened on the second pass this way did not deserve to be made into door parts anyway.

[Glen Butler]

Johnny, here are some photos of my setup. The power feeder is typically used on the slowest or second slowest speed.

Scott


I am so grateful for your post. I would have never thought to put my tools in that configuration. When I saw this a light bulb when on and all my problems were solved. Sheets good are now out of the way, the vacuum is more central. We rearranged our shop last saturday and now material handling is so much easier and we have tons of space.

[Jeff Duncan]

Jeff...I would think that one adjustment would result in being able to run several boards through. Since in most cases there may not be a few 32"'s difference. I would expect that by trial and error one could reach a happy medium of about + 3/32 -3/32. Also, I see your point if the boards were cupped. Guess I have some learning coming up.


A feeder will easily accommodate +/- 3/32" of difference, not a problem. Probably more than that as feeders usually have a good 1/4" of movement in the wheels. My concern with thicknesses is going from 4/4 to 6/4 back to 5/4 and so on. I use stock from 4/4 though 8/4 regularly, and upwards of that on a more occasional basis.
Try it out and see if you like it, I still believe for a smaller shop it's probably less than practical, and that you'll still get stock flatter by doing it by hand, (assuming your using the jointer correctly) but that's just my opinion.
good luck,
JeffD