Jointing and Planing Continued
2009.06.28
Today I went back to Frank’s shop to run the glued sections through his jointer and planer again.
We started with the top sections and the jointer. In our previous round, I had noted some snipe and other scalloping when we used the planer, so I decided that we would use the jointer for the top side of the workbench top, and then the planer for the bottom side, which was less important.
Running the top sections over the jointer proved to be a challenging operation. I was glad I hadn’t glued up more than four boards, as that was about all we could handle. The most difficult part was keeping the relatively narrow reference edge up against the fence while essentially cantilevering the wider glued-together edge out over the knives. At first I stood on the outfeed side to help hold the end up, but after a couple runs, I moved to the infeed side to hold the back end, so that Frank could stand over the knives and make sure he was riding up against the fence. In retrospect, I think some heavy-duty featherboards would have made this job easier and produced more consistent results.
The legs and stretchers were easier to deal with, and after a quick pass or two over the jointer for each one, we were ready to run everything through the planer to clean up the opposite glued edges.
After everything went through, we lined up the top sections in order on the outfeed worktable. After some inspection, we could see some vertical gaps and horizontal misalignments. So we made a few select passes with the jointer again. That took care of most of it, but it does look like I will have to use my jointer plane after the workbench has been assembled.
Long Stretchers