planing without jointing?

[John Piwaron]

When I buy lumber at my local lumber dealer, they always offer services after I finish selecting whatever planks I'm going to buy.

Sometimes that's attractive when I buy something wider than my jointer can handle. But they don't have a jointer, they simply take the board and put it throught their planer. It's a seriously powerful machine. Much more so than my lunchbox.

Which leads to my question - how can they do that and get a reliably flat result.

I'd always believed that to get a flat board you had to first flatten one face with a jointer, then put it throught the planer. To use a planer only would cause problems through the fact that the feed rollers would press it flat long enough to get the wood past the knives, then spring back to whatever shape it was originally - cupped or twisted

So what's the story?

It also leads into a second question, why wouldn't they have a jointer?

[Gregg Feldstone]

I second the question. The yard I use told me their planer has cutters on the top and the bottom, but I still don't see how that ensures flatness.

[glenn bradley]

The planer will assure parallel surfaces, not flat as we think of it in woodworking. I don't know-it-all by any means but even if a planer did both surfaces at once it would have to reference of something wouldn't it?

As to why they don't have a jointer, I'll venture a guess or two; if they joint for you, they are representing that the surface is flat (?). The lumber yard I go to has a jointer at one yard and not at the other. The story I got was that they don't like having just anybody joint a board for their customers and the guys at one yard have the skills and the other yard does not. Sounds plausible.

[John Michaels]

I've been using a planer sled with my lunchbox planer instead of jointing. It takes time to set up, but the results are excellent. When it comes to squaring up an edge, I use board straighteners on the tablesaw or screw the board to a piece of plywood and then rip it. If I had a large jointer it would speed up the process, but mine is only a 6".

[Chris Barton]

The most likely reason they don't have a jointer is because 99% of lumber yards will only sell hardwoods as S2S, their customers want the freedom to determine board withs...

[Bill Boehme]

It deopends on the quality of the lumber that you get. I do business with a lumberyard whose lumber is free of cupping and twisting. It means that using my jointer is hardly necessary except on one edge.

Here is a tip that will save you from turning a lot of wood into shavings: Cut the rough wood slightly oversized for the final pieces that you will need. If they still have noticeable twist or cup, joint one face before planing it down to dimension.

Bill

[Rob Millard]

I doubt that the lumber coming out of that planer is flat, because as you noted it is the old banana in banana out theory. If I’m careful, I can sometimes use the planer to flatten a piece, just by putting the convex side down and taking light cuts, but the vast majority of the time is a straight edge, winding sticks and a plane (power or hand) that are required to get a board flat. I’ve had many people tell me they don’t need to flatten stock, since it comes planed from the mill. My response to that is, what’s the name of that mill, because I want to buy all my lumber there. Of course there is no such mill, because there aren’t any such trees that produce flat lumber.

As to why they don’t have a jointer; I think is may be a skill and safety issue. Jointers, especially large ones are dangerous machines, and there is a lot of input needed from the operator. Planers on the other hand are fairly safe tools and require very little from the operator.

Rob Millard

[Joe Jensen]

As the others have said, you will get reasonably smooth wood with uniform thickness, but any twist or warp will still be there. I almost always rough cut to size before jointing and then planing so I can have very very flat stock. I'm working with some highly figured maple, and even fresh knives in the jointer is a disaster. The new Byrd head in my planer has not created one tearout or chipout. The pieces I am working with are only 15" long and 1/2" thick final dimention, without enough thickness to remove the tearout the jointer would create. So, I ended just planing both sides. Even with such small pieces, the did not end up completely flat. It's been a long time size I work with wood that wasn't completely flat when I finished prep'ing it. This experience of just a little not flat will drive me to get a Byrd head for the jointer...joe

[Jim Becker]

The most likely reason they don't have a jointer is because 99% of lumber yards will only sell hardwoods as S2S, their customers want the freedom to determine board withs...

I think the OP is more concerned with flatness, rather than the edges. EG, face jointing. I suspect that the reason that most lumber yards don't offer this service is the skill level (and time) necessary to do this without removing too much material from the board.

[Maurice Metzger]

This used to drive me crazy, as the only lumber supplier even close to where I lived would plane all their lumber before putting it on the racks. So you had boards that were already down to 7/8" and still weren't flat.

However a cabinet maker buying there told me he liked it because he could see the grain and there weren't any surprises.

[Jim Becker]

Maurice, I don't mine skip planed material, but really hate to buy S2S 'cause I want to make it absolutely flat before thicknessing. When buying rough, I take a small block plane with me to get an idea what's under the rough surface for color and general grain.

[John Piwaron]

So the bottom line -

I'm right. The boards are not necessarily flat. Smooth, yes. But not necessarily flat.

Right now I've got a couple of thick boards for a project that are wider than my 8" jointer. I'm planning on cutting the parts out over size in the rough and putting them through my planer on a sled. They're very thick too so I don't think my lunch box can flatten them enough to get the "banana in, banana out" syndrome.

And a jointer is a skill position? I haven't thought of it that way, but maybe I'm lucky. I find it *so* useful to remove defects, primarily cup and twist. But there is some body english to get that to happen.

It's a dangerous machine, to be sure. My first jointer took off the end of my middle finger.

[Bill Boehme]

......They're very thick too so I don't think my lunch box can flatten them enough to get the "banana in, banana out" syndrome......

If you are talking about cup, then you are probably right, but if you are thinking about twisting or bowing then the planer can't help that situation because of the shortness of the planer's bed which means that the planer can't take into account any bowing or twisting beyond the bed length which is usually about 12 to 14 inches. Adding extension wings doesn't help the situation very much because the roller pressure will be enough to deflect even a thick board such as 8/4 hard maple.

Bill

[Paul Mayer]

Here is a tip that will save you from turning a lot of wood into shavings: Cut the rough wood slightly oversized for the final pieces that you will need. If they still have noticeable twist or cup, joint one face before planing it down to dimension.

Bill

that is what I do as well. In general I wouldn't want the lumber yard to charge me for the whole thickness, then joint it perfectly flat across the entire width, as that could potentially waste a lot of lumber. If my intentions were to use all the boards at full width, then it would be great if they would do that, but they just don't.

[Mark Singer]

It is not flat from a planer....it needs to be jointed for flatness

[Jerry Olexa]

Running it through a planer will give you 2 planes paralell to each other but NOT necessarily flat. Further, jointing , in order to get flatness, sometimes has to remove much materials @ opposite ends etc of the board..

[John Piwaron]

It is not flat from a planer....it needs to be jointed for flatness


And now we come back around to my original posting. My hardwood dealer only planes, does not joint and therefore probably isn't giving a truly flat board back to the customer.

Because of that, I take my lumber home and take care of it myself.