Edge jointing

[DarrellC]

I purchased some 5/4 white oak from a supplier in north GA. They planed it and ripped one edge. when I got it home I found that only two out of six had straight edges. I need to edge glue for a table top. how do I get straight edges on them. I thought of taking one of the straight ones and attaching to the bowed ones and run them through the table saw. Is there a better way? would this work? they are 8' long and 5-8" wide.

[handi]

The fact that most of the edges did not remain straight is no surprise. I process my lumber twice for important projects, once to get it within 1/16-1/8", then sticker and stack it to let it finish "relaxing" after the cutting. Then process again from the beginning to get down to final dimension. This last bit of material removal gives me stable lumber.

Now on your issue, there are several ways to make a straight edge. Rip a clean strip of plywood on your saw and clamp it to your plank. Then you can mill the edge straight with a router, or rip it straight with a circular saw. You can also clamp the plywood to the board and use the plywood to guide along your rip fence as you trim the board on your table saw. You could use a hand plane, or even set up your router table as a jointer. 

The larger and heavier the boards, the more you want to look at running the tool across a stationary board. The lighter and shorter the board, the more you may want to run the board across a stationary tool. At 8' long, I would probably clamp and edge guide to the board and use the circular saw to edge them. This might also be a good excuse to buy or build a good straight edge guide system.

[JGrout]

I purchased some 5/4 white oak from a supplier in north GA. They planed it and ripped one edge. when I got it home I found that only two out of six had straight edges. I need to edge glue for a table top. how do I get straight edges on them. I thought of taking one of the straight ones and attaching to the bowed ones and run them through the table saw. Is there a better way? would this work? they are 8' long and 5-8" wide.

What other tools do you have at your disposal? 

while I am a proponent of straightening bowed edges on a TS and do so regularly it is not the tool to make glue line joints. That job is reserved for handplanes or a jointer.

[DarrellC]

What other tools do you have at your disposal? 

while I am a proponent of straightening bowed edges on a TS and do so regularly it is not the tool to make glue line joints. That job is reserved for handplanes or a jointer.

do not have a jointer. have a couple of old planes, but never really used one.

[Cooler]

I've "jointed" boards on the saw by first laying two boards side by side like ready for glue up.  Then hot glue a 1' x 2" horizontally to the top of both boards at each end.

I then put this on the saw and rip through the line that "joins" the two boards.  Mark the surface of both so that you know which edge aligns with which edge.

I did this with some 5/4 pine.  A single pass was enough to remove stock from both boards (you have to remove a  little from both boards along the  entire length).  Even if my blade is not perfectly at 90 degrees, these will mate up because they will be complimentary angles.  That is if the left board is 91 degrees, then the right board will be at 89 degrees, but even if it is off by that much they will join perfectly.

I was only doing 5 foot boards so I don't know how this will work with longer ones.  You might want to attach  a longer fence.

Make sure you  mark the boards.  This is not really jointing, but more like fitting together.  Use a pencil to draw a diagonal line across the top of both boards.  When the diagonal lines up it is the right boards joining up.

[TomFromStLouis]

There are lots of work around ideas using table saws etc. but this is simply a task that a jointer is quite specifically designed to handle. If you do not own a power jointer then this is a very good time to learn how to use a hand held jointer plane. It is a skill that takes time and effort to learn and if you are in any way serious about woodworking then why not learn now? If you are not interested in developing skills and just want to git-r-done then IMO your work will always reflect that.

[BloomingtonMike]

Have a router in  table (or screw a router under a piece of mdf and make a quick table setup) and a straight bit and a fence? If you don't have a router, this is a tool opportunity - get a dual base 2hp or larger setup

[Steve N]

I purchased some 5/4 white oak from a supplier in north GA. They planed it and ripped one edge. when I got it home I found that only two out of six had straight edges. I need to edge glue for a table top. how do I get straight edges on them. I thought of taking one of the straight ones and attaching to the bowed ones and run them through the table saw. Is there a better way? would this work? they are 8' long and 5-8" wide.

What other tools do you have at your disposal? 

while I am a proponent of straightening bowed edges on a TS and do so regularly it is not the tool to make glue line joints. That job is reserved for handplanes or a jointer.

Darrell I am assuming your non straight edge is either a crook, or a kink type of situation, or if not you aren't just talking edge, you are also talking faces. Just trying to make sure we are all on the same page.




I don't have the pic anymore, but Joe has posted it in the past a long board with a true straight edge he runs along his rip fence, and he puts the board to be cleaned up alongside of it toward the blade. His long board has a tab, think finger to hold the crooked board in place. A quick pass through the TS give you a nicer edge to work with, though as Joe suggested not one optimal for glue up. Many will profess you can glue right off a TS, even using a "glue line" blade that is the weakest board prep, and failure is frequent. A Jointer, or hand planes are the 2 ways to get an edge ready to glue. A distant third because it is more difficult to control for consistent depth is a router table and a flush cutting edge bit.

Using hand planes to joint edges is really one of the easiest jobs to learn for a plane. The thing is you'll need a crash course on sharpening if you don't know that. A sharp plane blade really takes the work out of it all  
 

Check the video, it really isn't hard to do once you get them clamped side to side. The beauty of it, is the edges DO NOT have to be perfectly square to each other like with a jointer, a slight lean one way or the other is A-ok because it's exact mate is clamped right next to it
If you have more than a 2 board glue up, you must start by carefully aligning the boards how you want them, then marking each next edge 1, 2, 3, 4, so you know one and 2 go together, 2 to 3, 3 to 4, etc

The apparent fondling he is doing prior to starting is making sure he is going with the grain.



Try it on some scrap, 2x4's are great, cheap, pretty splintery wood, and never going the right way on their own. If you can joint up 2x4's to edge glue, doing hardwoods will be a breeze.

[joe1086]

Plenty of good advice here on how to do it yourself. Another option might be to find a local cabinet shop or place that does mill work and ask them to joint the edges. Might not cost too much and a pro will get it done in 10 minutes.

[FloridaRetiree]

Another option no one has mentioned yet is that the joint does not have to be straight.

Matter of fact it is often less noticeable if it has an ever so slight S-shaped curve. Use a router with a guide bit against a common shop template made for this cut, and doing one board at the time.