Thread: Jointers and thicknessers: Advice needed

Yep...big electric planes is about right.

A thicknesser makes a piece of wood thinner whilst a jointer makes a piece of wood squarer.

Neither can perform miracles.

They are really only of value when you routinely use rough sawn timber, second hand timber or love working with odd timber dimensions.....

I have a 15" thicknesser..........makes nice wood shavings!!

I have a 15" thicknesser and an 8" wide long bed jointer.

A few weeks ago they both come into their own. I needed some timber for door jambs and window linings/sills. Every piece of timber I looked at in the hardware shop was bent/twisted to some degree including all the dear stuff.

I brought what I wanted and then went home and proceeded to straighten the timber. Using the jointer first to straighten and square up one flat and one edge and then using the thicknesser to finish off the other sides to the required width/thickness. It was a real pleasure and made life much easier to work with straight and true timber.

Jointer:

Remove warp from faces, straighten edges
Joint edges for gluing
Cut chamfers and bevels
Relieve bottoms of feet etc.
Cut rebates
Taper legs

Basically anything you can do with a handplane.

Thicknesser:

Make one edge or face parallel to the other
Plane to an even thickness
Remove warp from a face - needs a sled

Do a search on "jointer" and "thicknesser" and you'll find endless pages of the pros, cons and general argument about their usefulness in relation to each other or otherwise.

Thanks Folks,

Now my next question.

Ive tak3n a look at the Carbatec website and there is a thing called a "planer thincknesser". These things appear to be jointers that convert into thicknessers...

Is this an appropriate tool for a small workshop or is it advisable to steer clear?

Thanks again

Joe

Another can of worms.

Some people love them, some people hate them.

Pros
Good for small workshops
Larger jointing capacity than most jointers

Cons
Time taken to swap between modes

There's probably more but they're the main ones.

Along the same lines as silentC. Its your own preference, horses for courses.

The Jointer and Thicknesser are a team. If you try and thickness on a jointer you might get a tapered board. If you try and joint on a thicknesser you might end up with a banana board that is the same thickness all the way along.

I have a combo machine which is good as I don't have the space for both. It would be nice to have individual machines but I don't have the space.

I personally think that you will get more accurate machines if you go for separate machines but you might never know the difference if you are limited by space like me. I guess it all comes down to can you afford both and do you have the space to put them in.

Studley

If you try and thickness on a jointer you might get a tapered board. If you try and joint on a thicknesser you might end up with a banana board that is the same thickness all the way along.

We've been over that in a previous thread. You can't 'thickness' on a jointer but you could use one the same way you use a hand plane to make a board of the same thickness all the way through. If you use a sled, you can plane one side of a rough sawn board flat using a thicknesser, without needing a jointer.

Yes they are a team, it's great to have both but they are not co requisite.

Thanks for the advice all...

Now to plan how to convince SWMBO that i need one.. haha

Easy!

Think of the money you will save on timber if you can recycle, buy rough sawn, or mill your own from trees! (You need a chainsaw too).

Originally Posted by silentC

Easy!

Think of the money you will save on timber if you can recycle, buy rough sawn, or mill your own from trees! (You need a chainsaw too).

an a bulldozer
an a logging truck
an a sawmill
an a...

Originally Posted by silentC

Easy!

Think of the money you will save on timber if you can recycle, buy rough sawn, or mill your own from trees! (You need a chainsaw too).

an a trip in the ambulance
an a hospital stay
an a good surgeon to sew the leg back on

I dont think it'll be all that hard.. i mean just last sunday and monday i managed to spend over $300 on the shed (vice, #4 stanley plane, non powered Compund mitre saw, drum sanders and some wood) and all i had to do was let her spend 160 on Olga Burg (designer) handbags from DFO on saturday.. haha

Re the basic Carbatec combo machine, make yourself a strong cup of coffee and settle down to read:

http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com...ad.php?t=14610