Jointing alternatives

[Lewis DeJoseph]

Hello,

I am in the middle of redoing my house and am looking to trim windows and doors as well as build interior doors all out of oak. In a previous post Mike Cutter said that I could build a sled for a planer and use that as a jointer. Then this week I read an artical about using a table saw to joint wood. Has anyone ever tried alternative methods of jointing, how did you do it. Were you happy with the results. As always thanks for your help!

Lewis

[Randy Klein]

For a power tool approach, I think a guided circular saw is the fastest way to joint (straight line rip) an edge. It avoids multiple passes at the jointer and you don't have to screw/clamp/attach a straight edge to the wood for the TS approach.

[Dave Verstraete]

Lewis
A router set up with a template bit that follows a straight edge clamped to the board (The board has to be wide enough, though)

[Lee Koepke]

I built a jig they had in ShopNotes recently for my TS.

Its basically a sacrificial fence, with plastic laminate on the outfeed side. It allows me to shave off the thickness of the plam. Its worked OK so far.

There is another 'sled' from the concept of a taper jig, using hold downs to get about 1/32 off the edge of a board that i have seen used.

[Ed Brady]

I like the guided saw, but my Benchdog router table has a built in jointer capability that uses shims under one half of the fence. This simulates the in and outfeed table on the jointer.

EDB

[Bruce Gray]

There are two sides of a board that a jointer can do: the edge, and the face. For the edge side, a table saw, router table, etc can do well. But for the face side, a sled and planer is a good choice. I have used a planer sled approach for boards that wouldn't fit my 8" DJ20. This has worked well. One caution though: to prevent the workpiece from rocking, you'll need shims of some sort between the sled and workpiece. These need to support the workpiece very well, or the pressure from the planer drive roller will flex the board and give a wavy result.

[Loren Hedahl]

Another way to handle a 'rocking' board is to clean off the twist on each end with a few passes of a hand plane (scrub plane works the quickest) then finish the job off with a bench top planer.

The first step is to lay out your project on your lumber. If you take care to choose which board becomes which finished piece, you can save yourself a lot of prep work. For example, if you have a twisted board, use it if possible for the short pieces.

I use my jointer so seldom, I should probably sell it. The only time it get used much is when I have a large project. Then I roll it outside my garage shop so the chips are easier to clean up.

[David Tiell]

I agree with what Bruce said. Face jointing and edge jointing are two different things and, while both can be done with machines other than a jointer, the principles used to do them are very different.