Random Tip #16 - Jointing Stock longer than your Jointer


gee-dub

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I always sight the edge first, and take off anything like a crooked end, or belly, first.  If only 2 feet of a 10 foot board has an end that needs dealing with first. I swing the guard aside enough to drop the board in a little ways before it touches the cutters, and run that end.  Sight and repeat until you get something straight enough to start with, to work with.

Regardless of how crooked the board is, it might not make a complete pass until the last one or two.

I always sight every piece before it touches the infeed table, and plan a strategy how it will be dealt with.   That may sound like it takes time, but I don't have to look at it long.  Without a strategy, it will take longer, and you might end up wasting more of the board than you need to.

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Great tip! The only tip I can offer is never joint anything longer than you have to. I layout my parts and cut the rough boards down before jointing/planing. When I do have to plane something long I do it very similar to the way you layout above.

What work stand is that on the infeed side? Looks pretty handy.

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Tom brings up a great tip on a technique that can save you making a taper out of your rectangle:

"If only 2 feet of a 10 foot board has an end that needs dealing with first. I swing the guard aside enough to drop the board in a little ways before it touches the cutters, and run that end."

I do this even with shorter material that has an arc in it.

pkinneb points out an error that a lot of beginners make.  They are so focused on jointing something that they joint the whole board and then cut parts out of it.  The smaller the material the less impact the deviations have during milling.  Breaking down a board into over sized blanks will save you effort and wasted material. 

*** Caution *** there is a limit to this.  You do not want to try to mill blanks that are dangerously small.  If I have four 6" parts to cut out of a blank I will mill a 25" piece of material and then cut my 6" pieces out of it.

 

57 minutes ago, pkinneb said:

What work stand is that on the infeed side? Looks pretty handy.

That is a Jawstand (cousin of the Jawhorse) with a doo-hicky clamped in its jaws that I use for material support.  Its just a small torsion box rail with a shaped hardwood cap.

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On 6/18/2018 at 2:02 PM, pkinneb said:

Great tip! The only tip I can offer is never joint anything longer than you have to. I layout my parts and cut the rough boards down before jointing/planing. When I do have to plane something long I do it very similar to the way you layout above.

What work stand is that on the infeed side? Looks pretty handy.

The key here is sequencing of your steps.

Imagine a scenario, you've got a 6.5 foot board and you want to get two, 3 foot pieces out of it. 

If you cut it in half, into 3 foot, 3 inch pieces, before any milling, and you then proceed to joint it, that will go fine, but then you get into planing, and low and behold, you get snipe that is perhaps 4 inches into one end of each of the 3 foot 3 inch boards. Which means you can only get a 2 foot 11 inch piece that is free of the snipe. 

If instead you can manage to joint and plane the full length piece, you can leave the single 4 inch bit of snipe on the scrap end, and still get your two finished 3 foot lengths, free of snipe. 

Of course you can always find ways to deal with snipe, it is just an illustration. 

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15 minutes ago, Isaac said:

The key here is sequencing of your steps.

Imagine a scenario, you've got a 6.5 foot board and you want to get two, 3 foot pieces out of it. 

If you cut it in half, into 3 foot, 3 inch pieces, before any milling, and you then proceed to joint it, that will go fine, but then you get into planing, and low and behold, you get snipe that is perhaps 4 inches into one end of each of the 3 foot 3 inch boards. Which means you can only get a 2 foot 11 inch piece that is free of the snipe. 

If instead you can manage to joint and plane the full length piece, you can leave the single 4 inch bit of snipe on the scrap end, and still get your two finished 3 foot lengths, free of snipe. 

Of course you can always find ways to deal with snipe, it is just an illustration. 

I don't get much snipe but you are correct if that's an issue you would want that to be considered as you determine the best process to follow.

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9 minutes ago, Isaac said:

The key here is sequencing of your steps.

Imagine a scenario, you've got a 6.5 foot board and you want to get two, 3 foot pieces out of it. 

If you cut it in half, into 3 foot, 3 inch pieces, before any milling, and you then proceed to joint it, that will go fine, but then you get into planing, and low and behold, you get snipe that is perhaps 4 inches into one end of each of the 3 foot 3 inch boards. Which means you can only get a 2 foot 11 inch piece that is free of the snipe. 

 If instead you can manage to joint and plane the full length piece, you can leave the single 4 inch bit of snipe on the scrap end, and still get your two finished 3 foot lengths, free of snipe. 

Of course you can always find ways to deal with snipe, it is just an illustration. 

This is OK if your boards are pretty flat to start with, but you can lose too much thickness if they aren't. Everyone's shop and lumber supplier is different, but for me snipe isn't much of a problem but board flatness often is, so I almost always crosscut before milling, giving myself a bit of extra length of course. And I don't crosscut if the resulting pieces would be to short to safely joint/plane.

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3 minutes ago, pkinneb said:

I don't get much snipe but you are correct if that's an issue you would want that to be considered as you determine the best process to follow.

Yeah, and in retrospect, I didn't choose the best example. Lets say instead the 6.5 foot board will become six 12 inch pieces. If you pre-cut them all, even a small amount of snipe will be an issue, since it will occur on each one. 

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On 6/20/2018 at 6:52 PM, Isaac said:

even a small amount of snipe will be an issue, since it will occur on each one

Often, feeding multiple pieces into a planer and butting each one up against the previous one as they go through, eliminates snipe. 

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  • 2 months later...

I wish I had read this post several months ago when I had to run 24 ... 2x6x12' boards through my 6" jointer!  It would have saved me from having to buy 4 replacement boards that I ruined.

I first tried roller stands since I couldn't man handle the 12' long boards.  Then I realized the hook was just riding up and down the rollers making a very interesting cut.  My fix was to rip an 8" wide x 8' long piece of 1/2" plywood and then cover it with hardboard.  This gave me a smooth, slick and flat surface to act as an infeed table.

The remaining boards all came out perfect.

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