6 Jointer Pointers

Steps 4, 5 & 6

4. Edge-join perfectly. To edge join boards without minute gaps in the glue lines caused by a slightly out-of-square fence, try this. Select the good face of each board. Then edge joint one board with its good face away from the fence. Run the next board through with its good face against the fence. The two edges of the joint will mate perfectly, even if the fence was not perfectly square with the jointer table. Glue-up, then repeat for more width.

5. Flatten the cup. Take at least half of the cup out of warped boards on your jointer. To do it, first flatten the concave side by face-jointing. Then remove the convex side of the warp by running it through your planer with the new flat side down. As shown in Drawing C, a shop-altered pushblock helps get the job done safely.

6. Rabbets work, too. For precision rabbets, you can choose a tablesaw with a dado set, or a router and rabbeting bit. But do you ever think of rabbeting with your jointer? Of course, your machine has to have a rabbeting ledge on the outfeed side. And you must remove the guard. Do so, and you'll get smooth-surfaced rabbets with minimal set-up time. The width of the rabbet will be limited to the length of the cutterhead and its depth by your machine's maximum cut.

Make an initial cut to the width and depth of the rabbet at the tablesaw. Then set the jointer fence to the rabbet's width, and start plowing away in shallow passes, as shown in Drawing D.

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