Roberts

Edge Jointing

One thing boat builders rarely need to do (thank goodness) is to edge-joint boards to make wider boards. But I could not find reasonably priced stock that was wide enough for the radiator cover. The only thing to do was to joint two boards together.

But how?

As usual, we are delving into matters that are practically trivial to trained or experienced woodworkers. While experts might get a chuckle out of watching me rediscover things they learned in high school, my real goal is to encourage the one or two people out there who are behind even me on the woodworking learning curve. If you are one of those people, this post, especially, is for you.

I say this, because when I first contemplated jointing two boards together, I considered it practically impossible. Why? Because to glue two boards together at their edges, both edges need to be perfectly straight and perfectly vertical -- i.e., 90 degrees from the wide faces of the boards.

Id done just enough planing of edges to know that this is not an easy thing to do with a hand plane. If you dont hold the plane exactly vertical, youll cut the edge at an angle. And since there is only one correct angle (90 degrees) and lots of incorrect ones (89, -89, 88, -88...), well you get the idea.

Also, it is oh so easy to take off a bit too much at the ends of the boards, so you end up with an edge that is high in the middle... more like a hill or mountain than a flat prairie.

I dont have a jointing machine, which really would make the job trivial, but for a few days, I actually checked craigslist, to see if I could get one on the cheap.


I was sorely tempted by a $500 Delta jointer, but in the end, came to my senses. I didnt have the money or the room for such a luxury.

I talked to one of the guys at the lumber place (who had one of the above jointers in his shop). When I talked about jointing the boards with a hand plane, he sort of sucked in a breath, shook his head, and said something like, "That takes some skill, brother..."

Oddly enough, that sounded like a challenge to me, so I decided to suck it up and figure out how to do it with one of the first tools I ever bought, my old wooden jointer plane.

The first thing I did was to sharpen the blade. Im still not very good at sharpening, but Id recently read that you could sharpen any blade with an oilstone, if you spent enough time with it. I decided to spend as much time as needed to get that plane blade good and sharp.

I wont get into the details, since I dont consider the method I used to be recommendable, but after spending about 45 minutes with my hand grinder, and double-sided oil stone, I finally had a sharp edge on my plane.

I then tried an old jointers trick, which is to clamp the two boards together, and plane them at the same time. Supposedly, this eliminates the need to plane exactly at 90 degrees. As long as both boards are planed at the same angle, they will join together. Scarfing is an extreme example of this idea.

Trying to joint two boards at once -- fail!

However, I found it impossible to plane two fairly thick oak boards together... Im not sure why, but it just didnt feel right. So I tackled them one at a time.

To make a long story short, with a whole lot of trial and error (also called practice) I found that I was able to plane the edge both flat and at a 90 degree angle. At first, I had to use a square constantly to check the angle, but with a certain amount of practice, I found I didnt. Somehow, my body or eyes just figured it out, and I started planing at 90 degrees. Unexpected, to say the least.

Keeping the edge flat was a different story. I think planing the ends too much is so common that theres a word for it, but I cant remember what it is. Suffice to say that if you check for flatness frequently with a long straight edge, dont over-plane the ends, and focus on the high points, you can quickly get the edge flat. Again, with practice, this becomes quick and easy. Again, unexpected!

Anyway, heres the result of my very first attempt at edge jointing. These boards are just laid side-by-side... a perfect fit. Amazing.

A minor miracle

To glue the boards together, I needed some bigger clamps than I had, so I made up a bunch of pipe clamps. You can make these as long as you need just by using longer 3/4" pipe. They are really handy and are designed for just this sort of work. You can press the wood down on the straight pipes, which helps align the boards perfectly.

Glueing up one of the end pieces

These are the kind of things I mean:


With longer pipes, they were just the thing for gluing the sides to the top (backed up by a big cleat screwed in the corner.

Glueing sides to top

Anyway, it was good to remind myself that I dont have to solve every problem with a new, expensive tool, and in many cases, its more practical (and more fun) to take a slow, low tech approach. I did a lot of planing on this project, and Im happy to say, I can produce a flat, 90 degree edge almost as fast as it would take to set up a big jointer.

If you know the word for taking off too much at the ends while planing, please post it below. Its driving me crazy that I cant think of it!

Next Episode: Flush Cut