8” Jointer...12” board...first time. Success!

[Bill Space]

I thought I would post this as until now I never tried making a board wider than my jointer flat (in one piece)

Removing the jointer guard and essentially making an 8” rabbit, and then running that side down through my planer first, on a temporary surface I made from a 9” wide piece of melamine particleboard, worked perfectly.

Flip it over and plane off the material that remained untouched by the jointer, and bingo, a flat 12” wide board.

Just thought I would post this to encourage those those who never tried this, to try it if the need arises.

Bill

[Jon Grider]

Clever idea. I'm assuming the melamine is thicker than the rabbet is deep, yes?

[Mark Wooden]

Been doing it that way for years, never a problem.

[Matt Day]

I did that with my old 8” jointer. I had mediocre success, not always 100% on the money. A 12” jointer solved that problem.

[Al Launier]

Good idea.
You could also joint the 12" wide board using a planer sled which basically uses the planer as a jointer for the entire first side. Then flip & plane without the sled.

[Bill Space]

Clever idea. I'm assuming the melamine is thicker than the rabbet is deep, yes?

Not my idea, saw different variations of the same idea on YouTube and described elsewhere.

The melamine sheet I had on hand is 3/4 inch thick. The uncut material beside the jointed 8” wide area was only about 1/8” higher than the jointed surface.

A planer sled is a different option that obviously works as well, but requires shimming of the work piece to make it stable, and to hold it in the optimum position to cut the top surface flat with minimal waste. And you have to manhandle both the sled and workpiece for each pass through the planer. Seemed like it would be more difficult/time consuming than the way I did it.

The melemine piece I used is six feet long, so it extends the length of the rollers on each side of the planer. I screwed a piece of 2x2 to the bottom on the entry side so it is held stationary by the first roller on that side. The board with the jointed surface riding on the melamine piece goes through the planer in a normal fashion.

Would be nice to have a 12” jointer for sure...16” even better...but I don’t and likely never will...

Bill

[Andrew Hughes]

Why didn’t you just rip the board in half and use your jointer to join them back together.
Make that machine earns it spot and it’s name. “ The jointer” :)

[Bill Space]

Why didn’t you just rip the board in half and use your jointer to join them back together.
Make that machine earns it spot and it’s name. “ The jointer” :)

That was what I normally would have done, but this way avoids the need to do that and saves time. Not that time is an issue for me as a retiree though. :D

For me this was an experiment as I had read about it but never tried it. Was easy enough and worked so well I will use this method for boards wider than 8” in the future. I have a fair number of them.

[Andrew Hughes]

Okay dokay sounds good to me.:)

[Al Launier]

OK, back to the original:
I thought I would post this as until now I never tried making a board wider than my jointer flat (in one piece)

Removing the jointer guard and essentially making an 8” rabbit, and then running that side down through my planer first, on a temporary surface I made from a 9” wide piece of melamine particleboard, worked perfectly.

Flip it over and plane off the material that remained untouched by the jointer, and bingo, a flat 12” wide board.

I am intrigued by this procedure - never heard of it before & think it's very clever. So, just to get this right let me paraphrase & please correct me if I'm wrong.



After removing the guard on the jointer the wide board overhangs the width of the jointer table.
You then joint only that width of the board that rides over the jointer blades until the depth is enough to establish a cleaned face.
You then take a clean, flat board whose thickness is greater than the depth of the rabbit, and whose width is approximately the same as the width of the rabbit just cut.
This board will serve as a "spacer", thick enough so that the original adjacent rough face is above the planer table when the spacer is beneath the rabbit in the wide board.
You then plane the entire top surface of the wide board to clean sufficient to establish a surface flat enough to plane from.
You then flip the board over & plane the rough face enough to plane down to the rabbit face.
Then flip again to finish plane the other side to dimension.


If that is the procedure, then how does the unfinished face that is above the table (unsupported) when the board is riding on the "spacer" keep from being pushed down during the cut & then spring back up?

As noted above, please correct any misinterpretation I might have.
Thanks.

[Peter Christensen]

There is another variation of jointing the wider boards.

Remove the guard.
Joint a flat surface.
Put it on a bench.
Take a power plane and with the front sole raised high, skew the power plane, rear sole riding on the jointed surface, down the length of the board removing the rough side. Repeat as needed, working your way across the board until it is flat. It doesn't need to be perfect to go into the planer after.

A hand plane works too but many of us don't like to exert ourselves that much.

it works well if you have one or a few to do but not so much if you are doing a pile. As a bonus, you don't need to have MDF or particle board for spacers. ;)

[Bill Space]

OK, back to the original:
I thought I would post this as until now I never tried making a board wider than my jointer flat (in one piece)

Removing the jointer guard and essentially making an 8” rabbit, and then running that side down through my planer first, on a temporary surface I made from a 9” wide piece of melamine particleboard, worked perfectly.

Flip it over and plane off the material that remained untouched by the jointer, and bingo, a flat 12” wide board.

I am intrigued by this procedure - never heard of it before & think it's very clever. So, just to get this right let me paraphrase & please correct me if I'm wrong.



After removing the guard on the jointer the wide board overhangs the width of the jointer table.
You then joint only that width of the board that rides over the jointer blades until the depth is enough to establish a cleaned face.
You then take a clean, flat board whose thickness is greater than the depth of the rabbit, and whose width is approximately the same as the width of the rabbit just cut.
This board will serve as a "spacer", thick enough so that the original adjacent rough face is above the planer table when the spacer is beneath the rabbit in the wide board.
You then plane the entire top surface of the wide board to clean sufficient to establish a surface flat enough to plane from.
You then flip the board over & plane the rough face enough to plane down to the rabbit face.
Then flip again to finish plane the other side to dimension.


If that is the procedure, then how does the unfinished face that is above the table (unsupported) when the board is riding on the "spacer" keep from being pushed down during the cut & then spring back up?

As noted above, please correct any misinterpretation I might have.
Thanks.

Al, you got it right.

in my case, since the supported part of the board was 8", and the overhang was about 4", the planer rollers held the board down against the 8" wide temporary surface the board was sliding on. That seems enough to hold the board flat with respect to the 8" wide jointed surface.

Not sure how well this would work if the board was really wide, say 14" with only an 8" flat surface supported.

Bill

[Al Launier]

Bill, thanks for the thread. You've given me a new "tool" that I can use for boards wider than my 6" jointer. My woodworking "horizons" have been broadened.

This may be a bit easier than adjusting & using my planer sled which does take a bit of time to average out the rough top surface, plus it can be a bit heavy to run through the planer. However it does a great job on large, uneven boards.