Wood Planning

Jinxed Jointing

Im no expert in jointing. I understand the theory of how to mill a board flat & square and Ive done it on many occasions. Ive also failed to do it on many occasions.

Saturday was one of those occasions where the jointer only served to maul wood rather than mill it. I began at about 1:00 pm with what I thought was the simple task of milling some 1x oak boards flat & square so that I could make some door thresholds. As the lumber was already S4, I figured it would be a quick process of taking out the slight bowing and then Id be ready to make thresholds by say, 1:30ish.

After marking the first board with chalk I ran it over the jointer. Then I ran it over again, and again and again. Each time it took more off the leading end, but the chalk marks on the tail end remained. I was creating a giant oak wedge. On seeing that I had ruined one of my threshold blanks I immediately checked the alignment of the jointer blades. I found that two were fine, and the third seemed a bit high. This led me to pull out my owners manual and box of jointer tools & accessories. After what seemed like forever (probably about an hour) I had the offending blade re-set to be even with the others.

I ran a test piece through and made another wedge.

This time I used John Whites Adjusting a Jointer video from Fine Woodworking (sorry, its a members only video) and re-set the outfeed table height. Ive previously used this method with good results. Not this time, though. I had been using roughly 3" wide rips of wood for the table height adjustment and milled each one down to unusable width before being satisfied with the results.

As I was out of scrap at this point, the kids and I piled into the truck and to Lowes we went. I picked up some pine boards to use when setting the height and a new piece of (poor quality) oak to replace the one I had earlier destroyed. Once we were home, I attempted to set up the jointer again. This time I was able to properly perform John Whites adjustment. The adjustment uses the edge of test boards to set the outfeed table height. Unfortunately, once I turned the board on its face, I was again making wedges.

Thats where I decided to call it a night. I had stopped making progress. Sunday I started anew with more test pieces. After about 4 hours of frustration, I gave up again on Sunday. I walked away from the jointer, lingering in the shop just long enough to make John Whites Jointer Knife Setup Jig (not sure if its members only).

Now its Monday and the glue in the jig dried. Unfortunately for my jointer, due to an upcoming vacation and all the work that needs to be done before we go away, Ill not get to try the jig for about two weeks. Hopefully by then my frustration will have abated and Ill have the patience to fight the damn thing into submission. Between the new jig, the renewed patience the R&R should bring and a viewing of the Wood Whisperer Jointer Setup video, Im hoping that I wont have to walk away out of frustration again.

At what point do you decide to walk away for the night out of frustration?