Frustrating Face Jointing and Planing Long Stock in My Small Shop

[George Bokros]

I only have six inch jointer (Delta w/ 48" bed) and a lunch box planer (Delta). I have some long (8') rough soft maple to face joint and plane to thickness. The first two I pieces I did two weeks ago came out great. Today not so. They are thinner on the ends than the middle. I have come to the conclusion that that length is to long for the capacity of my tools. I am using in-feed and out-feed support leveled to the bed of the jointer and planner respectfully just as I did with the first pieces I planned.

Was I lucky on my previous successful try or is my technique wrong?

Are you successful processing that length with tools like I have?

Arguhhhh!!

[Jim Dwight]

George,

I don't see how you are thinner at the ends than the middle if the thickness was determined by the planner. It is possible to get a little snipe at the ends but otherwise the two faces should be parallel. When I get "thin ends" it is because I did too much on the jointer trying to flatten the boards. Then the only way I can get them smooth on the other side is to take off more than I wanted resulting in a board thinner than I wanted. It isn't unusual for me to purposely leave a board less than flat to preserve enough thickness. If the board will be glued to other boards and made into a structure, that will help flatten the board (along the length). You can also make a sled and use the planner only for wider boards.

[glenn bradley]

Stock control on machines that rely on feed path accuracy is always a challenge. I assume the stock will not be cut down to smaller pieces for use and must be milled at length. the cure for me is always additional stock support. If the feed path is reliable, it doesn't matter how long the stock is. I have four roller stands and two or three of them only come into play when using long stock. The rest of the time they hang in the rafters.

[George Bokros]

I think my problem was I changed my process on the jointer doing the face jointing. I put less downward pressure on the middle of the pieces than I normally did. The stock did not have a banana shape so I should have used the same downward pressure on the entire pass. I am using four roller stands, two on both the in-feed and the out-feed so I did have support.

[John TenEyck]

That still sounds weird, George. Are you sure the boards didn't have a bend in them to begin with? That's the typical reason they end up thinner on the ends. And have you checked the tables to make sure they are parallel? Not to make you feel bad, but I would have loved to have had a jointer with 48" long tables. My Inca has tables only about 34" long, yet I regularly jointed stock 6 - 8' long w/o undue problems. Not as easy as it is now on my big Mini Max J/P, but it wasn't that hard. You have to read the board and make a judgment if it will yield the thickness you need. Take a pass or two and look at the board again to make sure it's doing what you want. Sometimes you just aren't going to win, so it's better to set those boards aside and cut them down to shorter lengths before proceeding rather than risk ending up with stock that's too thin for anything.

John