Thread: Edge jointing on a tablesaw

Sorry, it grew in my imagination. It's really only 55mm...

I now have a severe case of router bit envy

Now that the dust has settled on the original question I have a follow-up and that is how on earth do you joint wide (290mm), long (1800mm) planks on a Carbatec 6" jointer.
I found them almost impossible to control, especially vertically, and ended up using my trusty WV2000 as above.
Am I missing something or is that just the way of things?
It seems to me that laying these planks down and using either a table saw or a router as discussed is the only practical way to achieve this with any degree of control

Ian

It could be a knack thing, Ian. I don't often joint boards that wide, but when I do, I don't seem to have a lot of trouble. I just hold them firmly against the fence and let the weight of the board do the rest. Once you have a square edge, they seem to balance fine for subsequent passes. My jointer at present is only a little 6" thing from H&F but I'm about to upgrade to an 8" machine, which I'm looking forward to greatly because the bigger issue is how to face plane a 7" board on a 6" jointer. Something which I've been having fun with recently.

Thanks Silent,
Your response is encouraging and yet at the same time discouraging
Encouraging in so far as it's not beyond the capacity of the machine but discouraging because I clearly need lots more practice.

Ian

Yes but the former would take money to fix, the latter only requires time

I wonder if you could bolt a taller extension fence onto the existing fence? A piece of ply or MDF? That would give you something more substantial to hold the board perpendicular.

Yeah , was thinking along those lines but it would be a bit of Heath Robinson affair.
Still, nothing like sitting in my comfy chair in the shed and pondering

Thanks
Ian

Me again. Bearing in mind I've never used one and don't know what I'm talking about:

Long MDF fence, drill and countersink, smaller bits of timber, drill. Screws go through from the work side of fence, through clamping timber which is wrapped around the back of the existing iron fence, nuts on the back. You have now lost capacity equivalent to the width of your fence but since it's edge jointing anyway...

Now, you've made your fence taller than your job. You use fingers to hold down the work. Maybe there is a pickup point to mount fingers to hold the work in against the fence ?

2c...

It's problems like this that have stopped me spending the big $ on this stuff. For example with a facing bit your router table becomes a surfacer with almost limitless capacity. You surface out the face from the middle out until you have a ledge of a few mm at each side, then side joint those away. Won't thickness and is obviously slower than the dedicated machine but quicker than (me) doing it by hand. You can get facing bits of 1 3/4" diameter and more.

http://home.shop.ebay.com.au/items/_...&_osacat=11700

I've bought from this chap. The bits are good enough for me...

Damian,
Yep that's basically it....just need to work out the details.
In addition to what you are proposing I reckon there probably needs to be some sort of anti-tilt mechanism along the top edge to keep the work in good contact with the fence and probably some additional featherboards down low on the away side of the fence to keep the bottom edge from wandering.
Another issue, as I see it is to apply enough downwards pressure on the out-feed table to counter-act the weight of the material on the infeed side - a 2metre plank, even in pine, is no light-weight.

Has anyone done this already, maybe there's a thread lurking in here somewhere, or do I have to post pictures?

Ian

That's what I was saying, but clearly not clearly

If you read my posts I'm a big fan of featherboards or fingers or whatever you call them. If you bother to set up with them all over the place they eliminate some errors and they keep me well away from the work, and the sharp bits...

Damian,
I clearly see you are a fan of featherboards...clearly.
What I am saying, maybe not so clearly, is that when you stand a long wide plank on its edge the tendancy for the work to wander off the straight and narrow is much greater than when it is laying flat on its back. The leverage and hence the forces are much greater and maybe featherboards won't be enough - maybe it would be better to build an away side fence to .. dunno

Hope I cleared that up

Ian

Funny!

I would suggest you have a more limited view of featherboards than I do. Lets say your work is 8" wide, and thus 8" off your planer. You don't put a 1/2" high feather board beside it to hold it. You either make a tall featherboard, stack them with spacers in between or use pressure fingers again stacked, so the board is supported top to bottom.

You could for example get a 1/8" bit of ply 3' long and as wide as your job. Attach one end to an offside fence, then bow the 1/8 sheet and fix the other end. You could fix it in the middle so you've got a double bulge. This way you've got a sort of springy fence or offside full height full length pressure finger. If your workpiece snags it's got somewhere to go without blowing the whole machine apart...

Whatever you call this the important thing is the work is held securely, the pressure is constant as the work passes the cutter, and IMO most important of all there is no need to stick your fingers or head anywhere near the pointy bits...

Personally I think a router table does a better job of edge jointing a job like that. You've got gravity on your side, but I presume you don't have one so you use what you've got...

Personally I think a router table does a better job of edge jointing a job like that.

I would disagree with you there. A jointer is after all purpose built for this job. Edge jointing an 8" board is straight forward and doesn't require the use of feather boards. In fact I can't think of a reason you would ever need to use feather boards on a jointer once you get the hang of using one.

Originally Posted by damian

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Personally I think a router table does a better job of edge jointing a job like that. You've got gravity on your side, but I presume you don't have one so you use what you've got...

Damian, you're most likely correct.
I do have a router table and it would be far easier to construct a split fence for this rather than trying to build a high-rise gizmo for the jointer.
I am in the process of gathering together tools to for if/when I retire so, whilst I may have a nice little collection, I haven't yet had the experience to appreciate all their strengths and weaknesses and I just assumed that the jointer was the "right" tool for all jointing jobs and that you make do with things like table saws and routers when the "right" tool isn't available.
Clearly, (sorry) there probably is no such thing as the "right" tool and I need to apply a bit more lateral thinking

Ian

Ah, a differing point of view!
Silent I take your point, but I think, initially I will try either the table saw (for which I have previously got pretty good results) or the router table.
If the results aren't up to my expectations I'll try the jointer but experience take time (and timber) to aquire neither of which I have a lot of at the moment

Ian