can't eliminate bow in quartersawn oak on the jointer

[Ken Klingman]

I am getting frustrated. I am trying to build an entry door and sidelites out of quartersawn oak. I've already built the frame and am reasonably happy with it. But I'm having a devil of a time getting the pieces milled for the stiles on the door & sidelites. I've got 6 boards of 4/4 quartersawn stock a little over 7' long. 2 were pretty much straight and I got very flat faces on them on my Hammer A3/31 jointer/planer. But the remaining 4 boards have about 1/4" bow over 7' and I can't seem to eliminate it for the life of me.

I'm running the boards through the jointer, trying to take a little off the face at both ends, leaving the middle concavity bowed with the bowed part down. Just like I was taught. But no matter how many passes I make I can't seem to eliminate the bow! I'm trying very hard not to bear down on the center of the board and only remove material from either end, but it's just not working. I believe my jointer is in good tune - I jointed and planed some hard rock maple this morning which also had a bad bow, but which came out perfectly.

The oak and the maple were both about 7' long, but the maple was only about 1 1/2" wide whereas the oak is about 6" wide.

I'm at my wits end and given the cost of this stuff I'm nervous as hell about ruining any more lumber!

Ken

[Wade Lippman]

I considered one of those a while back, but decided the tables were too short.

But I wonder what would happen if you took off a bit from either side and put it through a planer?

[Jerry Miner]

Jointing a 7' board on a 4' jointer is always a challenge. You're using 4/4 stock for an entry door?? Are you planning to face-glue two or three boards together, or ??? If you are face-gluing, then you can allow some bow in the boards at this stage and glue together concave-to-concave. Go ahead and apply a little pressure in the center. Do your final flattening after glue-up.

You ARE talking about bow, right, not crook or cup?

[Matt Day]

I would confirm your jointer is setup properly first. Sounds like your tables aren't coplaner.

[Ken Klingman]

Yes, bow. Not crook nor cup. And yes, I'm face-gluing 3 boards to get 2 1/4" thick boards (Wildland Urban Interface fire codes, don't get me started!). I did face glue 2 boards with slight bow for the jambs, but ended up with more bow than I'd like and not enough material left to remove more.

[Rod Sheridan]

Sounds like the knives are too high in relation to the outfeed table........Rod.

[Kevin Jenness]

I have had the best results flattening bowed planks by jointing with the convex side down. However, getting rid of a 1/4" bow over 7' in 4/4 is not likely to happen. Assuming the scenario is what Jerry Miner suggests, you may wind up with flat stiles if you put the flat boards in the center and oppose the bows on the outside faces, but no guarantees. I would suggest doing the glueup and letting the blanks sit for as long as you can before final flattening. Obviously, best prospects would ensue from gluing together flat planks. Which you don't have yet. Good luck.

On the other hand, if you are planning to make 6 stiles for the door and sidelights, use the flat pieces for the door and the bowed pieces for the sidelights. Except that 4/4 is not appropriate for an entry door. What are your projected finish thickness and widths, and how are you planning to achieve it with the stock on hand?

[Peter Quinn]

LOL, I hear you pain. Been there. Problem is...there is no problem. Its nearly impossible to flatten 4/4 material over that length and width to any usable thickness unless it is already flat. Using a short bed jointer wont help. My approach, take your flattest boards, use as the core. Oppose the other two layers, glue it up using I beams made from MDF or plywood as cauls. You can't just clamp 3 layers together and assume it will end up flat, you have to make some very stiff platens the length of your glue up to make that happen. I have some 1 3/4" stiles (QSWO) I glued up for a door on my house using 3 layers, still dead flat after 4 years. Yes, I'm a procrastinator. Shoe makers kids go barefoot. My boards never even saw a jointer. Plane them smooth, apply considerable pressure and force them straight with cauls......ends up flat. Or flatfish. Odd layers makes for good balance.

So don't fret, and don't focus too much on the jointing. All will be fine.

[John TenEyck]

Something sounds strange if you successfully jointed the maple stock but couldn't with the oak. Maybe the wider oak is so heavy that you are having a hard time keeping the lead and trailing edges tight to the outfeed table. For a 1/4" of bow I would joint only maybe a foot on both ends, then another pass for maybe 2 feet, and then maybe a complete pass. For those shorter passes, I always turn the board end for end so that I'm jointing the board as it goes into the jointer. You're going to lose at least 1/4" of thickness to get rid of 1/4" of bow, likely more. If your stock can't handle that much loss it might be best to get some more stock, as painful as that is. At least you could then use what you have now in shorter lengths and preserve more of it's thickness, maybe for the rails.

John

[Larry Feltner]

Have you considered using hand planes to remove most, if not all, of the bow, then do final straightening on the jointer? I think that is where I would head if I were struggling with getting the jointer to do the job.

[Kim Gibbens]

Is it possible to cut the piece in half and have a better chance of flattening it and use those two pieced as the middle layer of your three piece sandwich?

[Mel Fulks]

I agree with Kevin, it's possible the jointer needs adjustment ,but facing the convex side works better. You can prove this
by putting a straight edge on the concave side and measuring the gap. Then face on convex side and recheck, in many
cases the gap will be less ,in no case will the gap be more. You will find that with the way you have been facing ,the board is MOVING the wrong way and working against you. Just try it. My theory is the "standard " way is pushed for liability reasons. Face on convex side letting the end of board rest on out feed table, hold down on out feed table. Run again allowing the leading end to be cut. Go to planer and dress other side removing as little wood as possible; any additional pass should be on the side that you faced. There are a couple of old lengthy threads on this subject.

[lowell holmes]

I have ripped 2X8X7' walnut boards that were bowed into two halves. I glued and doweled the halves back together with the bowed halves cancelling the bow.

I was making a boardroom door. You could not see the glue joint and the boards were straight.

[john lawson]

Outfeed tale needs to be adjusted.

Take an hour or two, do a couple of google searches on how to adjust your outfeed table. (happens a lot when you change knives) Read your manual.

Good luck, you can fix it if you are patient

[roger wiegand]

I knock the high points down with a hand plane, then use the jointer to finish. I suspect the problem is that the board is too long for the jointer bed. You may well be better off jointing the convex side, purposely just taking passes in the middle of the board. Right now the board is just following its curve over the cutter. You'd need to lift the back end of the board to the same height as the front as it sits on the jointer at the start, and then reverse it as the board passes over the cutter to make progress with the concave side down. Not easy, hence going to the hand plane.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Similar to the handplane option:

Pull the cutterhead guard. Adjust the fence so all but a tiny bit of the blades will be covered by the board. Set for thin cut.

Hold the lead edge up in the air, with the tail on the infeed table.

Lower the board's center over the cutterhead - @ 1/4", you will not touch the head.

1 pass on the back half.

Flip end-for end, take another pass.

Rinse, repeat.

After you have jointed, say the first 2' and last 2', you have a 3' gap in the center that still needs to be dealt with.

The table length is your enemy. Assuming the tables are coplanar, and set for a thin cut, as noted above.

You need to get to the point where you have coplaner surfaces at the front and back ends, and part of boths of these sections is in contact with the tables at all times.

Also - the QSWO I buy is about as flat as you could ever expect. I would be using 5/4 over 7' if I needed to be sure of min 3/4" finished dim.

[David Nelson1]

Sounds to me like the outfeed table is low. Gotta agree with Rod

[glenn bradley]

So we're saying his machine went out of alignment between the 2 boards that were successful and the 4 that are not? Possible I suppose. more likely the degree of irregularity in the portion of the material that is unsupported. Proper jointing requires a consistent feed path.

Place you example board on the jointer concave side down like a bridge over troubled water. Use something to hold it there and step back so you can see the whole board and its relation to the plane of the infeed table. Is any of the board hanging lower than the plane of the infeed table? Bingo.

Roller stands, table extensions or whatever means you have can solve your feed path problem if it is present. I also cut parts to oversized length and width to minimize compounded error before miling. Do you need a 7 foot board? If not you are delaing with bow that you can reduce by reducing the length of the material.

[Ted Reischl]

For the life of me I am trying to figure out why he is face jointing a 3/4 inch board that is 7 foot long? Especially when he is going to be gluing up layers to over 2 inches? I would face plane the boards if need be, do the glue up and then see what is what.

Maybe I have not been reading this right?

[paul cottingham]

I think I would use a hand plane across the board (traversing) to get the ends true with the middle. It's easy and fast.

[Mel Fulks]

He is making a door, so cutting the material in half is not going to help ....unless it's for the dog. I think in the several long
threads on this subject that I have seen, a total of three of us have reported better results with convex side down. Makes
me think only three of us have ever tried it. I've won a few bets with it ," I bet I can make both sides a little straighter by
faceing ONE side". Not every board will do it ,but NONE will get worse. Often with concave side down the other side will
get MORE BOWED. That is easy to verify with a straight edge.

[Kent A Bathurst]

For the life of me I am trying to figure out why he is face jointing a 3/4 inch board that is 7 foot long? Especially when he is going to be gluing up layers to over 2 inches? I would face plane the boards if need be, do the glue up and then see what is what.

Maybe I have not been reading this right?

Yeah - I'm with you on that, but was trying to answer the narrow, specific issue raised. Plane the adjacent sides [4 faces total] Glue, clamp, see what's what.




..........a total of three of us have reported better results with convex side down. Makes me think only three of us have ever tried it........

Make that at least 4. I do it when there are extenuating circumstances - no other way out. But - I almost never have rough stock that is more than slightly bowed / twisted. It never makes it in the truck. The 7' deal is the kicker here, of course. 95%+ of my stuff is significantly shorter, so rought cut as first step - any bow vanishes at 40".

[Ted Reischl]

I just decided to do a little math!

The OP stated he was making door stiles that will be 2.25 thick. He also stated he is using 3 boards. So each board needs to be .75 thick. He is starting with 4/4 stock. Then he wants to mill at least 1/4 inch off one of them to remove "bow". I am thinking he is going to wind up with less than 2.25 after he is done milling up the three boards.

[J.R. Rutter]

He is making a door, so cutting the material in half is not going to help ....unless it's for the dog. I think in the several long
threads on this subject that I have seen, a total of three of us have reported better results with convex side down. Makes
me think only three of us have ever tried it. I've won a few bets with it ," I bet I can make both sides a little straighter by
faceing ONE side". Not every board will do it ,but NONE will get worse. Often with concave side down the other side will
get MORE BOWED. That is easy to verify with a straight edge.

I agree. Where I am, the core of a board is almost always drier than the skin. Remove the skin from the convex face and the drier layer that you just exposed will work to pull the board flatter. Sometimes, you can even simply plane the convex face and the board will flatten out. It won't necessarily stay that way over time as it re-acclimates, but long enough to do whatever you need to do that requires flat faces.

[Mel Fulks]

Thanks for the help,Kent. You will soon get your membership card and "secret decoder ring!" .....I'm waiving the box top
requirement! But seriously,it takes a lot to overcome thousands of magazine articles written by lawyers and insurance executives. And that tip about about just buying the good pieces is great ... If your buddy owns the lumber yard!

P.S. You too, J.R. !

[Kent A Bathurst]

And that tip about about just buying the good pieces is great ... If your buddy owns the lumber yard!

It turns out it ain't all that hard. I go to what I consider to be the top-notch place in Metro Atlanta.

When I first went there, I spent some time just chatting with the guys in the warehouse about what they have, how often it is restocked, all of that. Bought a few sticks - maybe 100 BF - they bring out the bundles for you to pick from.

I made sure to restack each bundle so it was tight and flat-stacked.

The second trip, I needed some QS material. I brought a flashlight and an LN LA block plane. Went to the office, and asked the guy if I could take some swipes to get good idea of the face grain, and the end grain. "I will treat it like I own it" and then I plopped the LN on the counter.

He smiled - "Have at it".

Out in the warehouse, explained it all to the guys, let them hold the LN - not kidding, I doubt any of them had seen one in the wild. Now they are giving me the bidness about being a big-money guy with the fancy tools. Good-natured ribbing.

So - now I is a actual knowledgeable craftsman dude - not the "2 short sticks of strange exotic stuff" newbies, and not the "1,000 BF whatever it looks like" interior trim guys.

They will respond to any reasonable request, and are great guys.

Best benefit: One trip, looking for some 5/4 and 8/4 QSWO, the units they had were pretty picked through. Told them I would have to wait for the next supply. They said "Hey - that's cool - we'll call you".

Few days later "We'll be receiving your QSWO tomorrow morning no later than 11 am."

They cut the mill-pack bands for me. First guy through the stock. Bought what I saw that I liked - more than I needed, but some solid inventory of good stuff - good ray fleck, vertical end-grain, and flat-flat-flat.

If you are not a jerk, if you are a knowledgable guy, not a guy that only looks for bits and pieces for jewlery boxes [nothing wrong with that, of course - just an upside down customer service-to-sale ratio], you can get into their world, and benefit from the relationship.

[Jim Matthews]

Outriggers or extension tables may help.

300563

[lowell holmes]

If you will rip the bowed door into halves and then dowel and glue them back together with the bow in the halves opposing each other, you will get a straight door.

Since the halves are from the same board, the glue joint will pretty much disappear. The door I made like this 30 years back is still straight.

[Kevin Jenness]

I still don't know what the original poster's intent is. Perhaps he will post again and explain just what it is he is attempting to do with six 4/4, 6" wide boards to make stiles for an entry door and two sidelights. I and others are making an assumption that he is aiming for a three ply 2 1/4" lamination, which is not a bad plan, but perhaps not his. It would seem that he needs more material to make an entry with sidelights of traditional proportions. If so, perhaps he can come up with some flatter stock for the door stiles and use the bowed stuff for the sidelights which can be held in place by stops. I will say that gluing boards with opposing curves together and expecting to come up with a flat door stile long term is a crapshoot, and if I did I would let the lamination sit for as long as I could prior to finally flattening it and incorporating it into a door that should outlast me.

[lowell holmes]

The other approach in my mind is to start with 8/4 or 10/4 quarter sawn stock and mill it flat. If your making an entrance door, you have to use quality materials .

[Keith Hankins]

Please don't take offense, but I'm going to ask a basic question. Are you only appying pressure to the face of the board, on the outfeed side? If you are apply pressure directly over the head or on the infeed side, you are creating a planer effect, and will never shorten it. My only other comment would be on door stock, I never ever try to work with wood that's already squirly before I start milling it. A 1/4" bow is a lot for a door. For door's it's QS only and I take an initial milling and sticker and watch it. If it's start's moving forget it. Worst thing in the world is to have a door after all the labor to bow because of a piece. Not worth it. I got bit once many a year ago on a project for someone, not wanting to go get more stock. Well what it cost me in the long run to rebuild that stinking door that came out of my pocket, because I was penny wise and pound foolish, was a great lesson. I'd go get a new piece if it were me. But then that opinion and a buck-fifty will get you a cup of coffee. :)