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A planer is used for making two edges parallel while a jointer is used for making straight or flat surfaces. Let's say you have a warped board (suppose it looks like a banana from end to end). If you pass it through a planer, it will enter as a banana and exit as a banana. A jointer, on the other hand, will shave off bits of the banana, little by little, ...
19
A planer
will ensure that 2 opposite faces of a piece of wood are parallel to each other
will generally handle wider pieces of wood
is not the appropriate tool for working the narrow edge of a 'wide' x 'thin' board (think shelving), as you cannot safely feed a tall, skinny piece of wood through it
allow you to make an uneven board an even thickness from one ...
17
What I have tried in the past is simply nailing a straight board to the board I want to cut
In essence that's a very good method to do it, and will even work even if the board you're working has very uneven edges, e.g. a live edge (UK: waney edge).
I would recommend you not use nails ideally, you can hold the board securely without having to mark it. Below ...
14
The purpose of a jointer is specifically to flatten warped lumber. If your lumber isn't warped, you don't have to joint it. In a fantasy world, none of us would need jointers. Unfortunately, in our world wood moves, so even if the lumber was jointed perfectly flat before you bought it, it probably won't be perfectly flat by the time you go to use it. Certain ...
14
I've been curious about this as well. Illustrated using my mastery of MS Paint, it appears you clamp the boards together, plane to your heart's content, then un-clamp and just flatten the boards out...
first (exagerated)
then...
13
Generally, that is the right thing to do. Obviously you wouldn't let a power tool run all day when you don't need it, or even walk away and let it run unattended. But keeping it running in between making several cuts in a couple of work pieces or drilling several holes is absolutely fine (I am almost inclined to say "best practice").
For the tool as well ...
10
The cutterhead you pictured in your question is a Byrd Shelix cutterhead, which produces a shearing helical cut using square, 4-sided carbide inserts. There are also other configurations of segmented cutterheads with carbide inserts which produce cuts of varying quality.
Contrary to popular belief, helical cutterheads--even the widely-acclaimed Byrd Shelix ...
10
There's a couple of ways to do it
Create an "in feed" and "out feed" fence for the table saw fence (see http://www.woodworkingtips.com/etips/2005/01/28/wb/). The infeed is slightly narrower so as the work is passed through it, it cuts the board and should come out flat on the other side, assuming the outfeed is parallel to the blade.
Secure the warped ...
9
I am wondering (assuming I have my choice of plugin's in a shop) is one better than the other.
It all comes down to wattage. P = IR; i.e., Power (Watts) = Amps * Voltage. If a given tool draws 14A on a 120V circuit, the same tool will draw 7A on a 240V circuit. The more amps you send through a wire, the thicker (higher gauge) the wire you need, as touched ...
9
The solution is to treat the leading and trailing ends of the bowed board like separate pieces. Joint them individually until you can pass the entire board over the jointer without changing the lay.
Make sure your jointer is set up so that it's removing a layer much thinner than the total deviation of the bow in your wood.
Carefully lay the board over the ...
9
This article has a nice tutorial about how to set the jointer knives.
It covers 2 styles of heads.
First is the style with jackscrews (labeled A in the image):
With those you can adjust each screw until the blade is set correctly (as with the straightedge method).
The second style is the one with pushback springs.
With those there should also be a jig ...
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I'm going to take a stab here and guess that the intention is that if you take two boards clamped together you could plane two edges at the same time (assuming your plane blade is wide enough). Those two planed edges would fit perfectly together if you rotate one board 180 degrees before fitting them together. This is true even if you're not planing at ...
8
Helical cutter heads are easier to keep sharp: carbide is harder than steel, the teeth can be rotated to a new side three times, and when it's time to replace the teeth you don't have to muck about with adjusting their exact height; that's automatic.
If the head is damaged (e by metal embedded in the wood) you can replace just those teeth.
Helical heads ...
8
All else being equal, anytime you have a choice between HSS (high speed steel) and carbide, you have to consider the tradeoffs.
High-Speed Steel
Advantages:
Cheaper up-front
Easier to sharpen
Less brittle
Disadvantages:
Potentially more expensive long-term (depending on application)
Wears faster (must be sharpened or replaced more frequently)
Carbide
...
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I think that could work, but I've seen a (imo) better way done by the Samurai Carpenter on Youtube.
There is also an instructable for such a sled. \o/
(Image from instructables.com, made by user robot-six)
He attaches guides on either side of the board that is to be planed/jointed and builds himself a sled for his router with which he subsequently takes ...
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Would the edge jointing go smooth across the grain, which is the
resulting strips after the second set of cuts? I used to do the same
with the hand plane and didn't have issues there.
Here is an example of an end-grain cutting board that was sent through a thickness planer:
(Source)
Again, that's a thickness planer, which has the cutterhead pretty ...
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I'm contemplating buying a jointer plane or a hand held electric jointer. Any recommendations?
It depends on a few things, in my opinion: how accurate you want to be, how hard to you want to work, and how much do you want to spend.
Accuracy
Jointer planes can be amazingly accurate in the right hands. They have the ability to finesse an edge by ...
7
Possibly the best method to flatten the face of a board using power tools not specifically designed for that job is with a router mounted in a planing sled/levelling sled. There are abundant versions of this posted online so this is just a sample:
It must be said though, this technique is perhaps best kept in reserve for major stock removal, e.g. taking out ...
7
I'll use the US terms jointer for the top part of that machine and planer for the bottom part.
Thickness planers typically have a motorized drive, meaning there's no choice about feed direction (unless you're talking about which end of the board to feed first, which is an interesting but different question).
Jointing, in which the work is fed by hand, ...
6
In addition to the other answers:
Plan your cut from start to finish. Know what you are going to use to push the lumber (push blocks, hands for edge jointing, etc.). Think about if your hand falls, where it will go and make sure that they won't contact the blade.
Know where the shutoff switch is located and think about how you can quickly activate it if ...
6
I copied some of the information from my earlier answer to your linked question, and added a few other points:
Use the proper personal safety gear, like eye and ear protection.
Don't disable or remove the spring-loaded guard. It's there for a reason.
Use a pair of flat push blocks with handles and rubber pads on the bottom for friction. Using this type of ...
6
Most woodworkers I know, including myself, walk along with the board when jointing, to some extent; but for long boards they stay in one place either at the infeed or outfeed side and use the push pads hand-over-hand to "walk" the board across. You should put downward pressure on the infeed table when starting the cut and on the outfeed table when ending the ...
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Would the edge jointing go smooth across the grain, which is the resulting strips after the second set of cuts? I used to do the same with the hand plane and didn't have issues there.
This depends on the depth of cut you take with the jointer. If you take a pretty shallow cut (1/32" is probably about right) and have very sharp jointer blades, the finish ...
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See past comments re using a sled to stabilize the piece so a planer can be used as a wide jointer. e.g.This one
If you don't want to build a sled, another approach is gluing reasonably straight "rails" to each edge of the board (not the ends) to hold it in a consistent position. The tops of the rails will be planed away as you flatten the board, but if ...
5
Being an old fogey, I have a lot of experience with 110 vs. 220 in a shop environment, both commercial and personal. My primary tool for years (early 60's on) was a radial arm (all 10" Craftsman's, my current one is circa 1958). Having run it on both 110 and 220, the biggest difference is power recovery. Not only is the start-up much faster, but any cut's ...
5
220V devices run at lower currents since voltage and current are inversely related, and as such, require smaller conductors. Smaller conductors in wire is cheaper, so installing a circuit to support 240V/15amp is cheaper than 120V/30amp.
There are efficiency improvements in motors when running at 240V, and even more so in running 3-phase power. 3 phase ...
5
There are a couple things to consider:
Eye protection (should be self-explanatory)
Hearing protection (again, self-explanatory)
Use push blocks and keep your hands away from the blades
Use boards long enough to comfortably guide through the cut
Keep your body outside of the line of action of the blade
Keep track of grain orientation to avoid kickback (...
5
That process would certainly work, although if you want better results, you might consider a slightly different method that requires no bandsaw work at all:
Face-joint one face. Edge-joint one edge. Now glue some tiny wooden shims (no more than three, with none on the thickest corner) onto the remaining rough face to bring it to the desired thickness. Plane ...
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A planer sled can be use with a planer to effectively joint (make flat) one side of work that's too wide for your jointer. Once you've flattened one side, you can flip the work and run it through the planer with the flat side down (no sled required) to flatten the other side and ensure that it's parallel to the first side.
The key to the sled is that it ...
5
Bring in some other tools
This would seem blasphemy to do to wood of this age but you could consider cutting the boards down their length and laminating them once you make them square. If you are already cutting them square then the natural character that this wood would have would be removed anyway.
Table saw and band saw come to mind. They should be ...
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