Waviness when jointing maple

[Gabriel Marusic]

I've been jointing 8' x 6" 6/4 maple that I plan on making into cabinet doors and have been experience a bit of waviness in the wood after my passes. This sent me on a wild goose chase over the weekend of re-calibrating my jointer thinking that something was out of wack with my blades or tables. Ultimately I did make some adjustments to the blades, though nothing was severely off to begin with. While the waviness is a bit better, it is still definitely present. The thing is, the flatness of the edge after jointing it is actually great and I was at .0015 when spot checking it with a feeler gauge against my straightedge (excluding the minimal snipe at the end). Is waviness normal in harder woods? It was pretty pronounced when I was face jointing and I was taking down the wood a bit trying different settings and technique to correct. I had my best results with a painfully slow pass taking off about 1/32 and the below picture is of the edge that I measured against.

IMG_3548.jpg

[Richard Coers]

It's normal when the knives are dull. Can't say I ever started with 6/4 anything to make cabinet doors.

[Gabriel Marusic]

It's normal when the knives are dull. Can't say I ever started with 6/4 anything to make cabinet doors.

That's good to know. The jointer is pretty much new though, is it normal for them to come a bit dull from the factory?

[Kevin Jenness]

Do you mean .0015" (<1/64") or .015" (>1/8")? If the latter that is a significant problem. A new jointer should have sharp knives. If you run your fingernail across a stationary knife edge does it catch or slide off?

[Brian Tymchak]

If you can't feel the waviness, then you might just have a little bit of curly figure in the wood. If so you should see these lines of curl in the face of the board.

[Christopher Giles]

Gabriel,
It sounds as though you might be pressing down on the wood as you feed it through the jointer. This will tend to maintain the same shape it had when it started. The jointer should be taking off the high spots only, until it is flat.

[Gabriel Marusic]

Do you mean .0015" (<1/64") or .015" (>1/8")? If the latter that is a significant problem. A new jointer should have sharp knives. If you run your fingernail across a stationary knife edge does it catch or slide off?

Sorry, .0015. Will have to try sliding my finger across the edge after work today.

[mike stenson]

If you can't feel the waviness, then you might just have a little bit of curly figure in the wood. If so you should see these lines of curl in the face of the board.

I'm going to go with a bit of chatoyance as well please.

[lowell holmes]

One of these will clean it up.

https://www.google.com/search?q=thic...hrome&ie=UTF-8

[glenn bradley]

The picture looks like figure. I break long / large material down before milling; just a thought.

[Gabriel Marusic]

Gabriel,
It sounds as though you might be pressing down on the wood as you feed it through the jointer. This will tend to maintain the same shape it had when it started. The jointer should be taking off the high spots only, until it is flat.

Totally possible. I'm pretty new to woodworking and the jointer is the tool I have the least experience with. I only put light pressure on the outfeed table once the wood is about 6" past the cutter but I know my technique isn't fully there. Particularly at the beginning I can feel a bit of vibration like the board is rattling against the cutter and table if that makes sense.

[Gabriel Marusic]

The picture looks like figure. I break long / large material down before milling; just a thought.

This is actually roughly broken down as the stile it will become is close to 2 meters. You did bring up a great point though. I should start with the rails as those are considerably shorter and would be a lot easier start for me as I figure out technique and settings. And as always, thank you for your input. I consistently see you answer on all my questions and really appreciate the help!

[Gabriel Marusic]

If you can't feel the waviness, then you might just have a little bit of curly figure in the wood. If so you should see these lines of curl in the face of the board.

You can feel it, though it's very subtle.

[Alex Zeller]

I'm confused by the posts with decimals. 1/8" = .125", .015" is slightly less than 1/64", .0015" is about the smallest feeler gauge in a set. If you are less than .0015" then you are fine. Most likely then Brian is probably right and you have some curly maple tricking you into thinking there's a problem. Are you sure you aren't just feeling a difference in the grain and not an actual wavy cut?

[mike stenson]

I'm confused by the posts with decimals. 1/8" = .125", .015" is slightly less than 1/64", .0015" is about the smallest feeler gauge in a set. If you are less than .0015" then you are fine. Most likely then Brian is probably right and you have some curly maple tricking you into thinking there's a problem. Are you sure you aren't just feeling a difference in the grain and not an actual wavy cut?

Almost all the maple I've ever had, has shown some minor chatoyance when edge planed. Even if it wasn't obvious on the face.