Jointer-Planer

MachineInfoBox Hammer A3-31

Synonyms:	planer-thicknesser, power jointer, thickness planer; DE: Abricht- und Dickenhobelmaschine, "Abrichte", "Dickte"
Material:	naturally structured wood (not more engineered than glued laminated timber!)
Access Requirements:	Jointer-Planer IntroductionSome use of "" in your query was not closed by a matching "".
Manual:	felder-gruppe.at (DE), (EN)
Tutors:	Lukas Pakue Sebastian LoewensteinSome use of "" in your query was not closed by a matching "".
Similar (More or Less):	jointer plane, planer

A jointer is used for straightening the narrow sides of wooden boards which is necessary for panel glue-ups and some kinds of joinery. It basically consists of a flat surface with a slightly protruding cutting drum at the center.

We chose to get a combination jointer/planer to save valuable space: thanks to the second flat surface under this cutting drum, you can also thickness boards with this machine!

This tool is not ready for use yet since not all commissioning steps have been completed. The process is not yet tracked on GitHub. Feel free to contribute to making it usable, any help is very welcome!

Task	comment	Status
Name the tool:	-	done
Take a picture	-	pending
Find the manual as PDF	felder-gruppe.at (DE), (EN)	done
Documentation	this page, status: in commissioning	pending
Print QR-Code	use the wikicrawler	pending
Introduction	Jointer-Planer Introduction	pending
Security Check	printed manual needs to be kept at the machine (done), push blocks need to be adapted with pins that fall down behind the workpiece (and/or make a new one with a lip)	pending
Test	to be done or witnessed by a manager	pending
tool's name, owner and approx. value	provide to Patrick for inventorization	pending
Last step: make it available	physically and in the wiki - then delete this template	pending

Buying rough sawn wood

With our Jointer-Planer, you are able to buy rough sawn wood from wholesalers, your favorite construction market - or even directly from one of the saw mills in the surrounding area. Depending on how rough the wood is, you'll have to plan on removing between 2 and 4mm of material per large face and up to 10mm on the smaller faces of the wood - this is due to the sawing marks on the larger faces and on the often non-squarely cut smaller faces. In construction markets, the rough wood tends to be on the lower end of the amount of material to be removed, while wholesalers or mills tend to be on the upper end of material to be removed. So, you should buy your base wood oversized and rather too large than too small.

While construction markets like Bauhaus, Hornbach or Obi usually have fixed prices depending on cut and size and are rather expensive, wholesalers and saw mills price their wood by volume and are often open for negotiation - you usually directly get 3% off when paying immediately, if you ask. Always ask beforehand, if the volume is calculated *before* drying (which is often the case for domestic woods) or *after* drying (which is often the case for imported wood) - this may change the price by up to 15%.

Buying wholesale or at a saw mill

You should bring a pocket ruler and (optionally) a small hand plane.

If you want the best bargain, you should also check, if the wood has been Air Dried (noted by the abbreviation AD) or Kiln Dried (abbreviated by KD) - the former is usually 10-20% cheaper than the latter. Air dried wood has gotten a lot longer time to dry out, which also reduces the internal stress - air-dried wood tends not to warp and rip as much as kiln-dried wood, but both are completely fine to buy.

When choosing woods, it's accustom for you to choose the exact pieces you want, which usually have to buy whole. You usually are allowed to bring a small plane and can ask to plane a small area to check the grain. Also bring a pocket ruler to determine the sizes, since each piece will have it's own size. Should the wood have a split at the end, this piece has to be cut or will continue to rip apart later one. It's okay to not take that board or negotiate the price down.

(Source)

You should also check the end face and identify the cut - especially if you plan to use the wood outside, where the environment will cause the wood to shrink and expand.

if the wood grain lies flat, the board tends to warp uniformly and a lot (fig a)
if the wood grain stands (fig b), the board will not warp
if the wood grain is diagonally (fig c), the board tends to warp unpredictably, but not as much as in figure a

If you've chosen your boards, an employee of the wholesaler or saw mill will calculate the price, which you usually have to pay now. They usually will shorten the board roughly with a chainsaw (transport cuts) to fit them in your vehicle.

Time and effort / price

Depending on the hardness of your wood, you can take of more or less depth in one pass on the jointer or planer. To give you a rough idea: User:Lars bought 12 pieces à 1000x300x55mm of rough sawn hardwood from a wholesaler. It took 2 hours to get the 12 pieces flat and square on 3 sides and reduced the width of the boards to 49mm and another 20 minutes to get them to their final thickness of 45mm. Add another 15 minutes for cleanup of the machine. This produced 2 sacks of saw dust.

If the wood would have been a softwood from a construction market, the first part would have taken around 1 hour instead of 2 hours. Still, in contrast to hand planing with a bench plane, it's probably a fifth of the time needed otherwise.

Some saw mills might also joint and plane this for you, which is a service you'll obviously have to pay extra for. Still, in comparison to buying pre-planed and joined hardwood, it's a lot cheaper to do it yourself. Remember: Jointing and planing dulls the knifes of the machine a lot and the saw dust has to be recycled - your member fee does not include those costs, so remember to leave a share.

Alternatives

jointing can also be achieved with a plane (ideally a long-bodied jointer plane) or a special jig for the table saw
instead of a thickness planer, you can use bench planes or a handheld planer