Short board in planer

[Rick Johnston]

735 dewalt.
I have two cutting boards that are 9"X 13". The 9" is with the grain.
Thickness is 1.25".
I've glued end grain together and clamped to be flat. Total length through the planer is now 18".
I'm at the maximum of 13" width for the planer to glue side runners to bridge the end grain glued connection.
Am I safe with this?
Options would be reduce the width to glue side runners or break out hand plane/sander.

[Matt Day]

My first question would be what kind of joint do you have connecting the two pieces? Just glue? Spline? Finger joint? Dowels?

If it's a strong enough joint I don't think I'd do anything different than usual, but I don't know if I've ever run into this.

[Marty Tippin]

I wouldn't trust an end-grain glue joint. When it fails inside the planer, it'll be spectacular. Make the cutting boards narrower, add side runners and do it safely.

[Al Launier]

When planing boards shorter than 12" on my DW735 I will take another scrap board 12" or longer, plane it down to the same oiginal thickness as the "good" board & butt it immediately behind the good board to push the good board until the rollers grab the scrap board. Works well for me.

[Rick Johnston]

I probably shouldn't have. I tested the joint and I could Not break it. Plus I ran a backer board. Not a practice I want to do again.

[Brian G. Mentus]

2 thumbs up on that thought Al!:o

[Doug Garson]

What do you guys think of this idea? If you are concerned that the end grain butt joint may fail, get a piece of plywood or mdf 18" or longer, double side tape it to the bottom of the boards before you run them thru the planer. I've used double sided tape to attach small pieces to a mdf carrier board and run thru my planer.

[Steve Jenkins]

How far apart are the Infeed and out feed rollers? As long as your board is longer than that distance I think you would be ok.

[Brian Tymchak]

When planing boards shorter than 12" on my DW735 I will take another scrap board 12" or longer, plane it down to the same oiginal thickness as the "good" board & butt it immediately behind the good board to push the good board until the rollers grab the scrap board. Works well for me.

I like to add a lead board as well just to assure that any front-end snipe gets caught by the scrap instead of my good short piece. (I've never been able to adjust out all the snipe on my DW735.) I also use a 4' sled for this type of milling. I've planed 6" long pieces stacked end to end on the sled.

edit: I also used double-sided tape on the short pieces to make sure the short pieces don't move.