Using slab flattening jig as jointer/planer

[Paul Park]

Hi everyone,

I'm a newbie so please forgive the rookie question. I'd like to be able to face joint wider and longer pieces, but can't really afford to purchase a large jointer at this time. Other than the speed (or lack thereof), what are the downsides of using slab-flattening jig for this sort of application?

Thanks for your time,

Paul

[Dave Sabo]

Two that I can think of:

You'll have to change bits for each operation.

There will be excessive waste in my opinion because it will be hard to initially level your piece to the table. Controlling exact depth will be tough too.

[glenn bradley]

Flattening with a router is great for large slabs. The surface yielded is not going to be as ready to work with as a jointed or planed surface. As always, work with what you've got. If you have no jointer or planer and don't want to embrace hand tools for a job that size, use your router. I used a planer sled for a year and a half while I saved up for a larger jointer. I still use the sled for still large pieces with good success.

[Jim Becker]

It's all about economies of scale. The flattening jig is ideal for slabs like glenn mentions because it's pretty much the best way to do large workpieces like that. You can shim the slab for flattening the first face and then get the other side parallel after you flip it. You generally are not taking off a lot of material relative to "thicknessing", although it's certainly possible to do so.

This is not really practical for "regular" use...it's time consuming, messy, etc. That's especially true with narrower stock in quantity. You can, however, flatten wide boards with a thickness planer using a sled and wedges. It's the same idea as using the slab flattening technique. And then continue processing the flattened board with the thickness planer to final dimension, being careful to take similar amounts off both sides, accounting for the flattening passes, too.

[Ronald Blue]

What Jim and Glen said. If you have a decent setup it will do an acceptable job but as you mentioned the time will be a factor. Actually in some ways you might waste less material. Setup properly it definitely won't waste any more than the jointer IMHO. I recently flattened 2 slabs for a lady on my CNC. They were about 19" by 50" by 2". Choose a quality bit and give it a try. There is no reason why a good bit shouldn't last a long time.

[Paul Park]

Thanks y'all. I appreciate everyone's guidance.

Paul

[Patrick Varley]

I have done this before. One thing that I learned is that it will flatten one (or both) side just fine. But if you're talking about dimensioning lumber where you need both faces parallel/complanar to get a uniform thickness, it's all going to depend on your setup. You will need a surface that's dead flat (or potentially be really good with a level), and have rails and a sled that don't introduce much deviation. At this point, unless it's a slab, I just rip things to smaller widths and reglue.

[Jonathan Jung]

2 alternatuves:

Have a lumber supplier surface them for you. My main supplier charges $.35 a bf + $25 for delivery.

Contact either your local ww'ing guild or the outside sales rep for your local lumber supplier to find someone with a wider jointer. I have local guys bring me material to mill / process on my 16" jointer and I'm happy to help for free on just a board or two or a nominal charge or trade for more quantity.

[Rod Wolfy]

A couple other options... Use a hand plane with winding sticks (like they did 200yrs ago. Or, Get a cheap planer and use a bed to hot glue your boards down to flatten the first face. Or, buy more expensive, premilled lumber from a home center.

[David Stone (CT)]

A lot of good advice so far. ...Lacking a jointer when I started woodworking, and, initially, even a planer, I made several pieces of furniture by face jointing, and at least once that I recall, thicknessing, with a router sled. The challenges mentioned by others here were certainly my experience: an hour or two of noisy back and forth with a router, lots of mess and a surface requiring more subsequent work than one off a joiner or planer. That said, it was a tolerable solution for face jointing purposes--and one I would use even now if I had a project justifying stock wider than my jointer can handle. As a thickness planing solution, it was finicky and extremely tedious, and not a route I would recommend, except in the absence of any better alternative, in which case, go for it.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Hi everyone,

I'm a newbie so please forgive the rookie question. I'd like to be able to face joint wider and longer pieces, but can't really afford to purchase a large jointer at this time. Other than the speed (or lack thereof), what are the downsides of using slab-flattening jig for this sort of application?

Thanks for your time,

Paul

Do you have a planer? If so, drop down into the Shop Made Tools forum and look at what's there currently.

[Bert McMahan]

If your boards fit your planer but not your jointer, you can make a planer sled:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqVhAzAUTw4

(That's just an example video, I haven't watched it. There are a million videos and articles on making planer sleds out there.)

[Patrick Kane]

There is a guy on youtube that routinely face joints his lumber on a router setup. It looks like a full blown welded frame CNC with gantry, but no controller or stepper motors. It looks like it has a decent 3-5hp spindle on it and he manually moved it over his boards to joint them before the planer. It's an interesting setup that raised my eyebrows at first, because i couldnt believe this guy didnt have the means for a decent jointer. Turns out, he does have an 8" pm, but still uses the router table a fair amount.

I would do everything possible to source a lunchbox planer, and then use a hand plane/planer sled to process your lumber. You can get by without a jointer for a period of time.