Face surfacing wood to prepare for scrolling

[harrisg]

A friend of mine has offered to give me a 4" jointer that he no longer uses. It would be nice to use this to smooth the board's face for doing kids animal puzzles, etc.. However, since almost anything I make will be wider than 4" I'm not sure if this would be of any use to me. I realize this question isn't directly about scrolling but is it possible to surface an 8" wide board by running 4" wide then turn it end for end and run it a second time on the remaining surface? Would this work??

[boogatoo]

It will leave a mark on the lenght. Chances are that your piece of wood 8" wide will be tapered convex form the center or concave to the center unless your blades are adjusted perfectly adjusted. Any missadjustment in the blades doubles the taper at each pass and the error cumulates. On one direction the wood will be smouth (cutting with the wood fibers) on the other the wood might be rough (cutting against the fibers). In short, half of the plank will be smouth, the other half will be rough and the plank will be either concave or convexe. This planer is used for squaring a piece in order to glue it side by side and fro "truing" one onf the flat sides. Your best bet is a tickness planer.

Any way be sure you will adjust the blades properly using a dial indicator that reads in 1/1000. Install an optional flat head tip instead od the bullet tip (about 3$). Get a magnetic base with the fine tuning arm (this is the one with a dial knob that engage-diengage the magnet). Blades alignment mitght realy test your pacience unless you got the right technique.

Here is a procedure I found and test. I also adapted it.

How to Set a Jointer

I have read in several places and different forums where people are expressing different problems with jointers. The number one problem is boards tapering, people are asking how do I solve this problem? And how do I go about it. So I thought that I would address this issue because there are many different items for sale that really don't work. Magnets being the chief culprit. What you need is a dial indicator with a magnetic base (see image below) all other gadgets don'T work well! When setting up any machine, the first question that should be asked is what is the datum. A datum is a specific surface line plane, or feature assumed to be perfect. On a jointer the out feed table is the datum not the cutter head. So magnets that hold the cutters to the cutter head don't work. So here is a sure-fire way of making sure that it is straight: The gauge will be discussed later.

If your Outfeed table isn’t a fixed one
- - Install the new knives or sharpened knives
- - Place the gauge on the out feed table and rotate the cutter head to find the highest edge. - The knives will have to be raised or the highest one lowered until they read zero or the same number.
- - Then the gauge can be set to zero or re-zeroed at any time. (Figure 1).
- - Move the gauge to the other side of the table, and the knives need to be adjusted to zero just like the other side. (Figure 2).
- - Things change as one side is raised or lowered, the process will need to be repeated several times until all the knives are at zero at both ends.
- - Place the gauge on the out feed table and set the indicator to zero.
- - Slide the gauge over the knives and raise or lower the out feed table until it goes to the same zero that was set on the table.
- The cutting edge should be the exact height as the out feed table now. Your jointer now should be set for you.

If your planer has a fixed Outfeed table:
- Place the gauge on the out feed table and set the zero on the gauge.
- Place the gauge on the out feed table and rotate the cutter head to find the highest edge.
- The knives will have to be raised or the highest one lowered until they read zero
- Move the gauge to the other side of the table, and the knives need to be adjusted to zero just like the other side.
- The cutting edge should be the exact height as the out feed table now. Your jointer now should be set for you.

[jttheclockman]

Harris

First that is a bench top planer with a universal motor so this thing is loud. Do not know how much it was used but could need some work so be careful. It was explained to you about installing knives but even to get to that point the knives have to be sharp and no nicks plus there are other setups with the jointer itself. I would suggest buying a good book on jointers and it will explain with pictures the do's and don'ts. As for planing 8" wood or any wood wider than 4" it was explained to you about cross grain this is also true when jointing edges of boards. As suggested a planer would be a better choice and here also grain direction is important. I like to use a combination of a planer and a drum sander to smoothe boards and take them down to the dimentions I need. I also use a bandsaw to resaw boards to get thinnner stock so there are better methods that what you described as wanting to do. Still would be a useful tool for edge jointing for wider boards. If the price is right why not.

[CanadianScroller]

I am a firm believer that you never look a gift horse in the mouth.
But I will agree with JT that a planer and sander combo is best.

The jointer is a useful tool. You can joint the boards before gluing them up.
You could thin the boards down before gluing them up too.
If you go end over end the grains will surely not be in the correct direction.
That being said, if the boards are planed down to almost the correct thickness you could then sand down the glued up board for scrolling.

SO JT and I are in agreement here.....

[jttheclockman]

Well Carl I guess there is still hope for us. We found something to agree on.