makin' wedges?

**spazmojack** · 11-26-2003, 06:53 PM

Um...I suppose this question is of the newbie type. I recently purchased a Delta 6" jointer. I like it alot, and have good results with it so far. But today I successfully made 2 four foot long wedges. I was trying to take some bow out of the boards and I was running them face down. By the time I got the face flat, it was severely wedge shaped. The first board i put with the bow in it bent down toward the jointer. After I got the wedge shaped board, I thought that I made a mistake, so the next board I ran through the jointer with the bow facing up. Everything was going well. The jointer was cutting on the ends only, and the blades were not able to reach the middle until I made several passes. When I was done, I had another wedge. My question is, is this normal? Do I need to expect that from now on? I know a thickness planer will make the board square again, but it will be considerably thinner than what I started with. Perhaps some of you are nodding your heads right now and saying "yes - that is how the %$#& thing works idiot!" If so, then I will be happy, because, well....then nothing is wrong. I will stop rambling now....

Andy

**Tom Hintz** · 11-26-2003, 07:03 PM

YOu m probably just need to get used to keeping even pressure on the board as it goes from one table to the other. You can "load" the board so more is cut off the front or rear ends, creating the wedxges you have.
I try to keep very even pressure on the board until it is at least 2/3 of the way across the blades and then keep it even on the front table.
The jointer has now way of knowing how the rest of the board is situated above it so it can't make parallel sides, but it can make two nicely jointed sides on a wedge!
Practice and developing the feel for the machine will fix things up in most cases. If the board is too badly deformed, you may have to make a wedge to get it straight.

Tom Hintz
www.newwoodworker.com

**legmaker** · 11-26-2003, 07:12 PM

You can relax. You are not doing anything wrong. A jointer is made to obtain one flat side to start. If this means making the stock a little thiner, that is what it takes to get good square stock to work with.That is why alot of us buy rough stock to start with. You just keep on keepen on:)

**spazmojack** · 11-26-2003, 07:45 PM

Aye! Thanks to Tom and Legmaker. I am new with this thing, so....uh....yep. I have been working with some pretty warped stuff to begin with, so I suppose this is to be expected. And I think I have been applying too much pressure on the outfeed table. I went back and tried it again, and noticed that I was putting all of my force down on the outfeed, and forgetting about the infeed. I just got some dramatic wedges earlier, and kind of got frustrated. One side was close to 1.5 inches thick, and the other side was close to 3/4 inches thick. Yikes! But thanks for the quick responses!

Andy

**TDHofstetter** · 11-27-2003, 01:19 AM

Andy, you can help yourself out considerably by turning the board around on every other pass.

Sure, that'll be a little tearout when you're jointing "uphill" but that'll be taken back out on the next pass when you're going back "downhill" again.

Also - you might try lowering your outfeed table just a very small amount.

Oh, BTW - you can intentionally make wedges (to pretty precise tolerances) by resting the leading edge of the board on the outfeed table JUST BEYOND the cutterhead, & then jointing as normal. Depending on the degree of taper, it may take a number of passes... but the leading edge will always stay the same size this way while the trailing edge will taper away nicely. If the board's too long to all fit on the infeed table, start with the trailing end of the board at the end of the infeed table for the first pass, with the start of THAT cut on the infeed on the second pass, and so on.

-- Tim --

Be well.
Be happy.
Live in love.

**Darrin O** · 11-27-2003, 10:44 AM

Andy:

Is your board tapered or 'wedged' at both ends? It would seem that as you take 1/8th off with each pass (not recommending you actually set your depth of cut to 1/8th... go lighter than that) and your board is an inch thick that you will lose quite a bit on the ends before you get to the middle. If there is a bow of a half and inch in the middle, by the time you get to where you are taking any off the middle, you will have already removed a half an inch off the ends. If the board is longer than your infeed table, it will make things a little weirder as the board will ride on the end of the table, changing its arc as it travels across the jointer, lifting the other end off the knives .

what you can try to do oftentimes is to cut the bow out first, cutting your board to a little over the finished length you need to allow for any sniping then joint it. Always keep in mind that it is seriously dangerous to joint anything shorter than 12 inches.

Darrin
"Ever notice how good enough, is usually neither good nor enough?"

Sonny Edmonds · 11-27-2003, 12:55 PM

Andy,
Same jointer here. Same lament at first. Then I tuned the beds.
I got me one of those Smart Tools digital levels. Bosch makes one as well. Limey got the Bosch and one other Forumite (Cracker?) did also.
I zeroed it to the infeed table. The outfeed was tilted to a slight lower at the end direction. Adjusted it to get it zeroed to the infeed and then checked and adjusted to zero acrossed where the knives immerge.
Once I did that, NO MORE "WEDGES"!
Also, I run my equipment very conservatively. My zero infeed setting is actually about 2-3 thousandths of knife exposure. So I can make very light skimming passes.
I prefer that so I can watch and see what is surfacing from the wood.
Surface one side of your stock. (Not both sides)
Once you have one side surfaced, edge pass with that flat side to the fence. Now you have a flat and an edge that are 90 degrees.
I like to plane at this point myself.
Then trim on the TS, and edge joint the forth edge.

Now some might think that a digital level is a bit extreem, but stop and think of how many places it can be used.
In a shop there are a tremendous number of places. On the jointer: paralleling the tables. Then, how close to 90 degrees is that fence?
Well, when zeroed to the tables, you place it against the fence and you'll know if it's .1 (that's 1/10 of a degree) off, or 90.0 degrees.

Accuracy counts! There are all sorts of ways to compensate for angular errors. But not having them in the first place is better.

Want to know to know if that TS is 90 to the table? Want to get that Band saw table tilt just right? Want your outfeed table co-planar to the TS's iron? Etc; etc; etc...

I got these rubberized magnets in a package at Lowe's one time. Sticky on one side, magnetic on the other. Business card sized.
Doesn't affect the digital level at all, but holds it to the fence of the jointer while I dial it in. Made the level hands free, and eleminates some human error, about all of it.

Anyhow Andy, THAT'S how I got around the wedgies in my shop.
Accuracy does count. ;)

:D

[link:www.sonnyedmonds.com | Sonny Edmonds]
"Precision Firewood Specialist"
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