Amana SC300

[David Nelson1]

I have a need to end joint a few boards for by bench top. Now I could just butt them against one another during the glue up and call it good, but I would prefer to joint them. I bought the Amana SC 300 (http://www.amanatool.com/actual/shaping999.pdf)for this purpose and I can't wrap my head around how one profile can be used to joint the same exact profile on 2 separate pieces of wood.

I'm working with stock that is 4" thick and 1.5" wide. The jointing would be on the 1.5 in dimension. What am I missing/don't understand about this set up?

[david brum]

You'll need to offset the cutter height on every other board, just the thickness of one of the "V"s in the cutter profile. Last time I made some of these joints, it worked to just flip the board every other cut. I probably just got lucky, but it's worth a try. In any case, experiment with scraps until you get both boards flush. Also, make sure you've got a really square coping sled of some sort.

[David Nelson1]

So to venture a guess am I going to be able to joint 1.5 inches which is the max for this tool?

[Peter Quinn]

I just made a set of stave core door blanks, all the staves were finger jointed, so I've been through this recently. Lots of finger joints. You have to change the cutter height for the second pass. Mark the up face and run both ends with the same reference face up, but you have to change the cutter height on the second pass. This means that you pretty much can't joint 1.5" stock with a 1.5" cutter height. The best I could get it to joint in my experiments was about 1 3/8" thickness. I used a different brand cutter but very similar geometry to the amana cutters. These are not generally "reversible" cutter heads like a lock miter or a drawer joint head where you run one board face up, one face down do achieve the fit with one cutter head height which is a source for some confusion. I did find a thickness at which I could run one face up, one down for a perfect fit at a single height, somewhere around 1 1/8" IIR, but that was pretty much it. I guess if your stock thickness falls evenly on the distance between finger centers it can work, but otherwise not.

To be honest if its just a hand full of joints and the stock is thick you may be better off with a long half lap. You can make them lying flat on a TS with a dado at a single height setting and a miter gauge, or with a RAS, they are easy to clamp. Its a plenty strong joint if you are going to bury it in a bench top with long edge glue ups around it. I went with finger joints because I had nearly 100 short pieces to joint at the edges to make up the door staves. The only finger jointers that I found for thick stock were very expensive, Garniga makes a great one for instance, Freud has a cutter that can be stacked, WKW makes super industrial sets such as for glue lam beams.

[Stephen Cherry]

If I were using that cutter, I'd consider taking some time to build a sled. It would look like a normal coping sled, but with two positions of different height. The first position would be to make the first cut with the board facing down, and the second position would be spaced up to make the opposite cut on the other end with the board also facing down. That way you would not need to move the spindle height.

Also, with an appropritate shim, it looks like you could do thicker stock by cutting in two passes by placing the shim under the board for each of the cuts.