Next machine to get after Tablesaw?

[WoodNoob]

Hi all,

 

I am part-owner in a reasonable tablesaw (cabinet style) that lives at my workplace (very close to home). I can use it whenever I want as long as there isn't a clash with work "things"! Unfortunately at this time of year there are a lot of clashes...

 

Anyway, I'm starting to look at my next purchase for my home shop, and feel like getting another tablesaw is a poor choice economically seeing as it will be a duplicate. Ultimately I'd love to have my own at my house, but for now I think it makes money-sense to get something else.

 

What do you recommend as the next machine? I'm tending towards a jointer at the moment. Getting things flat and square is probably my biggest gripe at the moment, and although I like hand tools and am building up my skills in that area, I can foresee getting a true edge on a long board with hand planes being something that will take me a long time to master!

 

What do you all think of a jointer as the next step?

 

My feeling is also that I may as well spend a bit more to get an 8" jointer over a 6" - but as always budget is tight.

 

Thanks for your input.

[TRBaker]

+1 on an 8" jointer.

[mikem]

I would actually lean more towards a planer first.  You can use sleds on the planer and table saw to flatten and edge a board.  The jointer really needs to be paired with a planer to really take advantage of it.

[Tom King]

Jointer.  Having a flat and straight side and/or edge makes anything easier to make, and makes running stuff through the tablesaw much safer.

[wtnhighlander]

Having a table saw and a jointer, I can saw with some feeling that I really wish I had a planer. Working with rough stock is a real bear without one. Although using sleds in the planer and table saw to perform the jointer's function is a bit of a hassle, at least it works. I have yet to see a good method for using a jointer to produce parallel faces on a board.

[duckkisser]

lathe.............don't know if you own one but they're addictive and they don't really need a whole shop of tools to make something nice.

 

I know it's not one of the choices but i'm hoping to get everyone addicted.

[..Kev]

Jointer or planer

[mikem]

Just remember, a jointer will only flatten each face, it won't make the opposing face parallel.  Material off the saw mill is very rough and would be extremely difficult to get to parallel faces with only a jointer. 

 

Now, if you are buying S2S lumber, and all you need is edge jointing, a jointer with your table saw, before a planer will be fine.

[G S Haydon]

Could you stretch to a combo joiner/planer?

[rodger.]

I would go jointer and planer, if possible. Jointers typically work in tamdem with planers. I can't really see a lot of benefit for having an awesome 8" jointer and then no planer to finish the milling process.

What kind of things do you build? If you use a lot of cabinet grade ply and face frames, you may want to go with a different tool than if you are building solid wood furniture.

If you have the skill, or are willing to learn, a no.5 bevel up plane (for flattening one side) and a nice lunchbox planer could be a great combination and cost less than an 8" jointer. With some practise, and reasonable length boards, this could be a good milling option.

[mikem]

What pug pointed out, before I had a decent jointer, I flattened a lot of my boards with hand planes, then took them to my lunch box planer. 

 

The important thing to remember is that one side only needs to be flat, it doesn't have to look good.  Once you have one side flat, and the other parallel, the planer will clean up both sides for you.  I still use this technique on boards too wide for my jointer.

[Tpt life]

Someone posted a hand plane-less method for milling warped boards on a sled after shimming the warp with playing cards. With this and maybe a No. 7, I would almost jump to the planer before the jointer even if you do not fancy the hand work.

[WoodNoob]

Mmm... I should have known I would only get more confused rather than less!

To be honest, I wasn't really considering a planer (what we call a "thicknesser" in Aus - don't you love descriptive names?), because my admittedly limited experience with one has been less than stellar. Sure it's not a great model I used, but even with Mark's great hot glue to a sled method to flatten boards, I didn't have a lot of luck. Plus for wider boards there didn't seem to be a safe reliable way of getting a 90° edge.

My understand with a jointer, which btw I've never used, was that not only do you get a nice flat face, but then you turn the piece and run your flat face against the fence and get a nice square edge. Surely if you do that move another two times you would get all square and parallel faces??

I just recently got myself a no. 7 and am teaching myself to flatten faces too.

Don't think I could stretch to getting both a planer and jointer or even a combo.

[ChetlovesMer]

Okay, dumb question. Do you have a router?

[dwacker]

My understand with a jointer, which btw I've never used, was that not only do you get a nice flat face, but then you turn the piece and run your flat face against the fence and get a nice square edge. Surely if you do that move another two times you would get all square and parallel faces??

No you can't get parallel faces with a jointer. The planer makes the non jointed face parallel to the jointed face.

[mikem]

For getting a straight edge without a jointer, you would want to do a sled on the table saw. 

[ChetlovesMer]

Yeah, Particle Board is right.

If you think of it this way. You can have surface A perpendicular to surface B, and surface B perpendicular to surface C. But this does NOT mean surface A and surface C is perpendicular.

 

Did I just make that more or less clear? .... hmm.... Anyway, you need a jointer and a planer to make two board faces parallel.

[WoodNoob]

Wow, great stuff!

Ok, yes I do have a router (well long term loan,). I'm aware you can joint with a router. But I don't have a router table, so I'd have to get a good one of those. I tried jointing with a cheaper convertible style router table with a split fence a couple of times and made a real meal of it. It was a long time ago and my skills have increased a lot since then, so that's a possibility. I guess then I'd have a "jointer" and a router table! I'm a little concerned about the steadiness and reliability of this method.

I've done some work with a TS sled. I'd have to make one again as this one is a bit rough now. It's pretty good, but again there seems to be a few areas that can introduce some inaccuracies as you are adding more equipment between the wood and the machine. I feel like with a jointer you're straight onto the machine so as long as that's square you are good.

Lastly... I will take all the words of much greater experience and wisdom as gospel regarding square and parallelism from a jointer.....buuuuut.... As an intellectual exercise I'm intrigued. If side A is perpendicular to side B, that's a 90° angle. Therefore if you then make side C perpendicular to side B that's 90° and therefore parallel to side A is it not? How can you have four corners that are 90° and not end up with the faces parallel?

[krtwood]

Lastly... I will take all the words of much greater experience and wisdom as gospel regarding square and parallelism from a jointer.....buuuuut.... As an intellectual exercise I'm intrigued. If side A is perpendicular to side B, that's a 90° angle. Therefore if you then make side C perpendicular to side B that's 90° and therefore parallel to side A is it not? How can you have four corners that are 90° and not end up with the faces parallel?

 

Just look at something like a wood shim that is tapered.  The sides are perpendicular to each face but the faces aren't parallel to each other.  That's what you get if you try to do it with just a jointer.  To get parallel surfaces you have to have a flat reference plane and cut offset from it.  You get that with a planer or any saw with a fence, but a jointer cuts on the same plane as its reference surface.  Without that offset there's no way to get a parallel surface.

[WoodNoob]

Ah! That was the missing dimension. I was just imagining a single cross-section with four sides all perpendicular. But of course that cross section is just at one point along the length of the board, the faces can move closer or further away from each other along the length! Got it now!

[ChetlovesMer]

The shim was a great example. Much better than my explanation.

[bobcrosley]

Matt Vanderlist, at Matt's Basement Workshop addressed this in 2 articles:

 

http://mattsbasementworkshop.com/jointer-or-thickness-planer-first/

 

http://mattsbasementworkshop.com/more-reasons-for-buying-a-thickness-planer-first/

 

Short answer is, it's possible to use some jigs, etc., to make a planer work when you don't have a jointer, but you can't make a jointer work as a planer.

 

And Marc wrote this:

 

http://www.thewoodwhisperer.com/articles/which-comes-first-planer-or-jointer/

 

With a couple basic sleds, you can use your table saw and planer to replace a jointer. But not vice versa. Also, some hardwood suppliers will joint one face and edge for a nominal charge, often much cheaper than having them given you S4S.

[bobcrosley]

Ultimately you will want both.

Amen.   

 

All that being said, if budget is a concern get the planer first.

My recommendations on planer-first didn't mean to imply you could avoid a jointer forever, but the sleds, etc., were temporary solutions.

[pghmyn]

 All that being said, if budget is a concern get the planer first.  You can get a good lunch box style planer for much less than the cost of a usable jointer.   A cheap jointer is probably worse than no jointer at all. 

Right on the money, in my opinion. I still have this cheap Delta 13" lunchbox planer that I use. It is loud, clunky, and the snipe is just terrible sometimes. But it does get the wood pretty darn flat and consistent thickness (the parts that aren't sniped, that is). I only use this machine to get my lumber to a specific thickness, then put it back in the corner. No need for a big one, yet.

 

My jointer is where I spent more money. I started with the small 6" benchtop Delta jointer and it was miserable. The tables were out of whack every time I turned it on. The fence vibrated out of place every now and then, and it was LOUD. Seriously, you could hear this thing 4 blocks away in a sound dampened studio recording room. When I finally got my own shop, I invested in the best that I could afford, and that was a 8" Grizzly jointer. Having the 72" worth of jointer beds just made a world of difference. I buy my lumber in the rough, sometimes with it hit or miss planed at 13/16 - 15/16. Once I can get that perfectly flat reference surface and edge, it's off to the races - and no looking back!

 

So, my recommendation, buy a decent jointer. The best YOU can afford. And buy a cheaper lunchbox planer. 

[WoodNoob]

Wow what a great thread! But of course I'm more confused than before!

 

I've done a quick tally and it seems it's roughly 3 definites for getting a jointer first, versus 4 definites for getting a planer first. With a couple of get boths in there too! One or two of you were equivocal about it. Oh, and plus one "get a lathe"! (One day).

 

I think I'll have to get a bit more practice with the lunchbox planer I've already used to see how accurate it is. 

I think I'm starting to get a little bit of skill with flattening faces with hand planes. Picked up a No.7 recently that will really help.

But edges is where I really suck! I can't keep them 90 degrees to save myself Hence the tending toward a jointer.

 

To the person who asked what kind of stuff I do - small things like lamps, a bit of bent lamination, solid wood - not much ply etc. 

 

But I can see the benefit in perhaps getting better at flattening faces manually/with a planer and just using the Table saw to get 90 edges. Or perhaps getting the router set up.

 

Phew! I can see I'm just going to have to convince the wife that I need three more machines!