Jointing without a Jointer

[mikedude]

I'm pretty green, I'm working on my third project a tabletop (for a base my wife already had, long story) and have some questions. I purchased a 12 foot by 12 inch Poplar board at HD, cut it in halve, brought it home, begin working with it. (It's amazing how bowed these boards are from HD. I picked the best one but still it wasn't flat.) I planed the boards down which took some of the bow out. I cut the two 72 inch boards down to 60 inches to match the base, and then needed to cut 1 inch lengthwise off of each 60 x 11 board. So if you can imagine my goal is a tabletop 60 x 20 inches.

I have watched Wood Works enough to know a Jointer would be real nice right about now in order to joint the facing edges so they line up nice and tight for the center of the table. Not having a Jointer I went to the table saw and ripped 1 inch the full length of both boards. I put them together to check for for a tight fit and there were some pretty good gaps. I sanded both pieces to remove the saw marks and tried again, still some gaps.

After scratching me head for a bit I decided to uses a straight bit in the router (in the table) about 1/8th inch out, then placed a 1/8th inch piece of plexiglass as a shim for the outgoing side, moving the desired flat edge across the router bit and fence. It worked pretty good but was a bit tedious and the end result still left small gaps but better than the table saw.

So here is my questions. If I don't have a Jointer and want to joint long boards like this is there a better way to do it? Also, if you have a Jointer wide enough to handle the stock would you try to cut away the bowed part of the board in order to make it flat? Or would you just not work with a bowed board to begin with?
I would like to get a Jointer but I work out of the front of my garage and don't have the floor space. I saw the tabletop jointers and read they can be tedious to work with on long boards as well. Thanks for your help. Mike

[psal2]

You may want to try this on your table saw. You can also use a router table but I couldn't find that one.

http://www.woodworkingtips.com/etips/2005/01/28/wb/

[LCHIEN]

I learned that if you want to joint a long piece of board you need nearly as long a straight reference to joint it properly.
In my case I wanted a straight edge on a six foot board - I had to fasten a 6' level to it and run that along my table saw rip fence to straighten out the edge of the 6' board. Running it over even my benchtop jointer with its short bed I could not straighten out the bow because the bow overhung the bed.

[scorrpio]

You might want to consider a 'jointing sled'. Get a sheet of good stable 3/4" plywood, and rip a strip roughly 12" wide along its length. Mount several hold down clamps near the factory edge. Now, you can clamp a board to the sled, run factory edge of plywood along the ripfence, and that should give you a straight edge. You will need outfeed support for it, though.

Jointing on a router is problematic cause router tables are usually rather small, their fences are rather short. If you can clamp something long and straight to the fence on outfeed side, and extend table surface itself to provide support, that should work too.

[vaking]

Here is the advise from the book.
Take a 6'+ long piece of MDF with factory edge. Set and clamp your board on top of this MDF sheet overhanging the edge by a fraction of an inch (1/32" to 1/16"). Use router with sufficiently long bearing flush trim bit and trim your board to match the edge of MDF. The book says that jointing long boards is easier with hand-held router than in a table.

[LarryG]

In my experience, the factory edges of sheet goods are straight enough to make a sawboard for reducing full-size panels down to smaller pieces, but not even close to what you can get from a well-tuned jointer.

If I didn't have a jointer, I'd use the router table method, with a piece of plastic laminate on the outfeed half of the fence (there should be no need to remove as much as 1/8" of material after the workpiece has been through the table saw).

[mikedude]

Pete- Thanks for the link. I will have to try that and see how it works. My saw left some swirling marks on the long boards I cut but it could have just been the way I made the cuts. If it weren't smooth I would be still out of the ballpark.

Loring- Are you talking about taking the bow out of the center of a board or straightening up the edge? I popped up to the local Wood Craft store today at lunch and it looks like 6 inch is about the norm for Jointers. Do you guys use a Planer to get some of the center bow out of a board or do they just not use bowed boards?

Scorrpio- That would be a big sled but it sounds like it would work. Thanks.

Vaking- That was my 2nd choice for routing the edge. If you did it this way would you sand the edge after routing? Seems like it would leave a tiny bit of roughness from the bit that would prevent that perfect center tightness.

Larry G- Thanks for the advice!

[LCHIEN]

...Loring- Are you talking about taking the bow out of the center of a board or straightening up the edge? I popped up to the local Wood Craft store today at lunch and it looks like 6 inch is about the norm for Jointers. Do you guys use a Planer to get some of the center bow out of a board or do they just not use bowed boards?
...!

ah, yes, Straightening the edge.

[mikedude]

Thank you Sir. I was in my office and just thought of this. (You know the office with the white paper on rolls.) Perhaps after cutting I could hand plane or hand scrape the small bit of roughage left by the saw or router using the long level as a guide; Testing both pieces for fit periodically. I've done this with horizontal shelves on a piece before. It's tedious but it works. Our forefathers didn't have all these machines and they got it done. I think I will give it a try. Thanks, Mike.

p.s. I should probably just walk away from the bowed wood. By the time you buy it at HD then spend all the extra time messing with it I could have just bought better wood at Wood Craft. I'm learning.

[scorrpio]

6" is about the norm for hobbyist workshop jointers, though an 8" model is recommended if you have space. Stepping up to 8", you immediately feel that it is a shift to a 'pro' machine. And it is not the extra 2" width - though it comes in handy now and then - it is the length. Most 6" jointers have 45-48" tables. An 8" jointer table is usually around 75", and the machine will usually have 200+ lbs over any 6"-er. It is a veritable 'aircraft carrier', but working longer pieces over one is a pleasure.

[psal2]

Pete- Thanks for the link. I will have to try that and see how it works. My saw left some swirling marks on the long boards I cut but it could have just been the way I made the cuts. If it weren't smooth I would be still out of the ballpark.


Larry G- Thanks for the advice!

Are you using a combo blade? If so, you might want to consider a dedicated rip blade with 24T (squared) or you might be able to do a soft block sanding to take the swirl off it...that might work.

[mikedude]

Sounds nice! It would be great to have even the 6". Unfortunately I don't have the room for one right now, I will have to make due with other methods. Most likely it will be rare that I am making something that length with multiple boards. Momma wants a new dining room table this year but I'm thinking of smaller modular sections that come together to make the long piece. Thanks, Mike.

[mikedude]

Are you using a combo blade? If so, you might want to consider a dedicated rip blade with 24T (squared) or you might be able to do a soft block sanding to take the swirl off it...that might work.

I can't remember what type of blade I bought other than it is a fine woodworking blade, reputable brand, fairly pricey as blades go. I replaced the factory blade. I will check it and run some test pieces through. Thanks, Mike.

[vaking]

If you are planning to glue up boards - sanding the surface before glue is unnecessary, some even say harmfull. Surfaces for glue need to fit without gaps, they don't need to be shiny.

[scorrpio]

If you are planning to glue up boards - sanding the surface before glue is unnecessary, some even say harmfull. Surfaces for glue need to fit without gaps, they don't need to be shiny.

Sorry, vaking, but this is being constantly debunked by many woodworking magazines as an urban myth. The reasoning behind it is that glue holds by penetrating into wood and forming 'fingers' that grab and hold wood pieces - and roughing wood up allows for more grab.

If that were true, end grain joints would be the strongest, since it would allow glue to go into exposed fiber ends, forming many long 'fingers'. PVA (woodworker yellow) glue does not work that way. Ther bond is more like what you get when you press two wet pieces of glass togeather. Water molecules do not hold to each other well, but when hydrogen atoms in a water molecule form bonds with oxygen atoms in silicon oxide (glass) structure, it forms a rather strong bond - but for that, the distance between glass plates must be about one water molecule. The smoother the glass, the closer you can bring two surfaces togeather, the better will water make them stick to each other.

Wood consists of long tubular cells, and walls of those cells hold to each other with a form of natural adhesive. PVA glue molecule ends highly resemble that natural adhesive. When you bring wood fiber walls close to each other, with glue between them, if one end of glue molecule can 'latch' onto one fiber wall, and other end onto other fiber wall, a bond is formed that can be stronger than natural adhesive binding wood cells togeather. However molecules of glue do not stick to each other as well as they stick to wood - or the glue would not be liquid. The molecules are fairly long, so there is a lot more tolerance than with glass, but you still want wood surfaces smooth enough so that maximim number of wood fibers are brought close enough to each other for a single glue molecule to bridge the gap.

This is why glueups should be done fast - once you spread the glue on wood, it does not take long for exposed chemically active molecular ends to bond with oxygen and carbon atoms present in the air. This is also the reason why glue has limited shelf life, especially once opened - takes only so long for it to 'swallow' enough from the air. When using old glue, you have too many molecules that will bind only at one end, or not bind at all, obstructing the access for still active molecules.

Other glues, like epoxy, once hardener is mixed in, will have molecules bind not only to glued surfaces, but also to each other - which is why epoxy is good for where gaps are present.

If you are still reading, the bottom line is: with PVA glues, the smoother your wood surfaces, the larger amount of face/edge grain they expose, and the closer they fit, the better.