Planer Problem or Me?

[Don Emmerling]

I have an old, but not used very much, Craftman 4" planer that I purchased back in the late 80'. knives are still sharp. My problem is that from time to time I am planing half inch stock after resawing and after a few passes I get a wedge shape starting when looking at the end of the board. I am trying to use equal pressure as I pass the wood over the blades. I cannot see anything wrong with the planer set up so I am guessing it is me. What could I be doing wrong to get this wedge shape.
Thanks

[Cary Falk]

I am going to assume what you are using is actually a 4" jointer. The only 4" planer I know of is the old Craftsman Ailen planers, but that does not sound like what you are using. I joiner is used to straighten an edge or flatten a surface. If you really want 2 faces that are parallel you need a planer or drum sander. If the wedge is across the width and not the length you are not putting equal pressure on the board and it has a twist in it after the resaw.

[Art Mann]

I don't think you will find a jointer anywhere with a human operator who can run a piece of wood several times over the knives and not create a slight wedge. There are just too many variables out there that can't be controlled very well with a hand operation. You might have a knife height adjustment problem that is making it worse but you can check that with a straight edge. I agree that a thickness planer or sander is needed to make opposites sides parallel.

[glenn bradley]

Right, recurring discussion ;-) Jointers (often referred to as 'planers' or 'surface planers' in other parts of the world) make one surface flat, planers (often referred to as 'thicknessers' in other parts of the world) make the opposite side parallel.

A well setup jointer will take a very reasonably accurate amount of material off per pass. Just as with a hand plane, there is some degree of error per pass. The compounding of this error can reach the point of being a problem.

[Robert Engel]

This can happen.
Double check your tables for parallelism and also the outfeed is equal height to blades.

Tip for resawing: Joint one face, resaw and rejoint next face before sawing.
This way one side of each board is jointed and you wont' need to face joint the thin boards, just run through thickness planer.
Of course, if you're getting warp as the come off the saw, you have to cut them thicker and use the jointer.

[Jim Becker]

A jointer (which you describe and is also called a "planer" by the Euro set) is designed to provide a flat surface on one side of the board. It's not designed to thickness the board. You'll need a planer (North American name), also called a thicknesser by the Euro set, to make two surfaces parallel.

[Ben Kann]

There's another way to deal with your wedge. Take light passes with the jointer and swap end for end between passes. This is a little like cutting a miter joint and letting the two imperfections cancel each other out.