Helping my jointer

[Phillip Ngan]

Hi

I'm jointing (with a 6" jointer) a 2x5.25 length of maple to make into bed rails. The board is a cupped as you can see in this photo.
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_hh0uhac1VlQ/TICFqUURbzI/AAAAAAAAAe0/P-m6crQLxLE/s512/triangle.jpg
The triangular piece is 1/2" at its widest and tapers to nothing over 16". I was wondering how to best remove this triangular piece of waste. The obvious way would be to use a bandsaw, and would do it if I had one. So here are some of my ideas, but how would you do it?


Just use my jointer, and keep running it over and over
Cutting it out with a hand saw (my panel saw is filed cross cut)
Cutting both sides of the waste with a hand-held circular saw and finishing with panel saw
Cutting with a 4" Progressor blade with jig saw and then finishing with a panel saw
Use a scrub plane (I need to buy one though ;)

[Tom Hintz]

If you can remove most of the waste with a hand held circular saw (and do it safely) I would do that and then use the jointer to finish flattening that side.

[Pat Germain]

Not sure I clearly understand the situation. But if I do, could you flatten one side on the jointer, then put that side against your table saw fence? Run it through the TS with the blade protruding just a little more than half way through the stock. Then turn it upside down and run it through again. The result won't be perfect. But you should be able to plane the side that the TS cut and end up two parallel sides.

[Jeff Monson]

Try setting your depth of cut deeper on your jointer till you get close to your line, then return to a shallow cut and finish it up.

[Van Huskey]

Not sure I clearly understand the situation. But if I do, could you flatten one side on the jointer, then put that side against your table saw fence? Run it through the TS with the blade protruding just a little more than half way through the stock. Then turn it upside down and run it through again. The result won't be perfect. But you should be able to plane the side that the TS cut and end up two parallel sides.


That would be my approach. The key would be leaving enough stock when cutting with the TS so that you can take several passes with the planer to make sure you can get it parallel before eating into the width you need for the bed rail.

[Bill Dieckman]

If you want to use your jointer, you could do it in stages.

Start with the bulk of the board beyond the cutters, the face you are wanting to trim down but not on the cutters. Pivot the board on the end of the outfeed table, lowering the board down about 3-4 inches from the end of the board, then pushing it through.
Do this over and over again, starting further up the face of the board each pass until you get to the line you're looking for. Same process is/could be used to create tapered legs using a jointer.

Just learning the craft but seems feasible.

my 2¢

[Prashun Patel]

How thick are your bed rails?

Consider ripping this down to rough width first and then jointing.

You may save precious width. Further, if the rails are < 3" you should be able to joint one face, then rip off the taper on the table saw in a single pass (for each rail).

[Chip Lindley]

This is just an everyday job for the jointer. I have taken bow out of boards on both ends. It is a bit more tricky if the board is twisted to boot!

If the marked "triangle" on the board needs be removed, lower the infeed table for about 1/16" cut. Start with about only 4" of the "triangle" on the infeed table and make a pass. Each suceeding cut will allow more of the bow to be removed. Raise the infeed for about 1/32" cut on the final passes, or too much material may be removed. You have to learn to judge by eye, and sneak up on it!

[John Coloccia]

I'm a little confused. Are you trying to end up with a board with two parallel sides or is the triangle part some sort of profile you're trying to put into the board. The reason I ask is that you said the obvious way would be to use a bandsaw, but if you're trying to make it flat the obvious way is to joint one face first and then put it through a planer to flatten the other side.

[Stephen Cherry]

If you want to use your jointer, you could do it in stages.

Start with the bulk of the board beyond the cutters, the face you are wanting to trim down but not on the cutters. Pivot the board on the end of the outfeed table, lowering the board down about 3-4 inches from the end of the board, then pushing it through.
Do this over and over again, starting further up the face of the board each pass until you get to the line you're looking for. Same process is/could be used to create tapered legs using a jointer.

Just learning the craft but seems feasible.

my 2¢

I vote for this way of doing it. I've tapered legs this way also and it is easy.

Just remember to keep track of your fingers.

[Phillip Ngan]

I'm trying to remove bow in a piece of wood, not create a taper. Sorry if I didn't make this clear. Looking at the photo, I see how people go the impression that I'm trying to create a taper. I'm trying to make a straight piece of wood (2"W x 5" 1/4T x 7' L) with parallel faces for a bed rail. No tapers, or anything fancy. I'm starting with 2" thick stock, and want to dimension with down to 1 1/2" thick stock. I'm following the usual procedure of first creating a true face with my jointer (to be followed with a true edge, and thicknessing the remaining face and edge).

However the board has a moderate bow. I thought 1/2" is too much to take off with my jointer, so was wondering if there was any way of removing the bulk of the waste region using other means so that I didn't have to remove so much material using the jointer.

I ended up using Tom's method of running my circular saw along the line on both sides leaving a 1" wide uncut portion in the center. And then using my jig saw with a long blade to take off the rest.

Thanks, to all, for the help!