Hi! I’ve only posted here maybe once, but I’m looking to change that and have been working to improve my joinery.

Specifically, I recently had the geometric realization that adjusting the horizontal angle on my miter saw is one of the least precise adjustments I can make, when trying to make two cuts that add up to 90 degrees. So instead, I now set the angle for the smaller angle, make the first cut, then set the workpiece for the second piece using a square against the fence. Basically, I’m rotating the piece so it’s 90 degrees to the saw fence, and that lets me cut the complementary angle without realigning the saw angle.

The new problem is that because I’m still using slightly-warped and slightly-twisty stock, the surfaces aren’t terribly great for gluing up. In one case, I glued up one end of a diagonal brace but the other end was lifting up, off-plane. Hand sanding with a block helps, but more often than not, I end up rounding off the edges and glue leaks out. So I’m now seeking recommendations for a small hand plane, so that I can have better, flatter surfaces to glue together.

Is this the right approach? If I’m mostly working with narrow stock like 1x4-inch, is there a correct-sized hand plane to smooth out an end-grain on that small of stock? Apologies in advance for not really knowing all the right wood terminology. I’m still learning.

Ideally, I’d like to buy something that will be versatile and serviceable for a long time. So cost isn’t too important, but ideally it’d be proportional to my (few) other tools. If I know what to look for, I’ll keep my eye out for such a specimen while at the thrift store.

EDIT: To clarify, a use-case would be if I’m gluing a diagonal brace at mid-height of a post. If i had a plane, I could work the post so that it has a flat face, so that the brace won’t deviate left/right. For the diagonal brace itself, I can mostly trust my miter saw to cut the angle reasonably plumb.

EDIT 2: Might I actually want a card scraper instead?

EDIT 3: y’all are awesome and I now have a fair number of suggestions to consider. I guess there goes all my disposable money for September, once I go visit the nearby woodworking shop.

  • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksM
    2·
    3 days ago

    You are very welcome!

    Yeah cutting extreme angles like that on a miter saw can be tricky; if using a 45 degree auxiliary fence you want to make sure you’re holding the work safely. I have a miter gauge for my table saw that swings through 180 degrees, so I’d probably use that, especially given how loose my little miter saw is.

    Power planers and jointers

    Trying not to write a dissertation on this subject, Thickness planers and jointers, like all power tools, do the job of a hand tool with less physical effort. Just like a cordless drill doesn’t magically make perfect holes, a thickness planer doesn’t magically make straight boards. There’s techniques to them, you have to know what you’re doing. Some things to keep in mind with power planing:

    • A jointer can make one face of a board flat, and one edge flat and 90 degrees to that face (most have adjustable fences that can do other bevels, but you’ll mostly have it set square). That’s it. Jointers can’t do parallel.
    • A jointer is not very good at flattening convex surfaces, because they can rock as they go over the tool. For bowed or cupped boards, you want to joint the hollow side down.
    • A jointer can only truly flatten a board that is up to twice as long as the infeed table. Beyond that it might trend toward a very large radius rather than truly flat. You may need to mostly flatten a board some other way before finishing it on a short jointer, or if this board is destined to be cut up, cut it into smaller lengths and joint them separately.
    • A thickness planer isn’t actually very good at making boards flat. It makes boards thinner, and while it’s doing that, it tends to make the top face more parallel to the bottom face.
    • Given a board with a flat bottom face, a thickness planer is pretty good at making the top face parallel to the bottom face, and thus making the top face flat.
    • Given a board with a non-flat bottom face, the thickness planer is going to make the board thinner, and the top face smoother, but who knows what it’ll do to the overall shape.
    • A thickness planer is very bad at taking bow or cup out of a board by itself. The rollers tend to mash the board flat, the cutter head cuts it thinner, and then the board springs back bowed or cupped once out of the machine, maybe with some added snipe for your trouble.

    Knowing their capabilities and limitations, you can use them together to surface 3 sides of a board. That fourth side can be ripped on a table saw and then you’ve got an S4S board.

    To jointer or not to jointer?

    A thickness planer does a job that is difficult to do with hand tools or other power tools, reducing the thickness of wide boards. I have no other tool that could take a quarter inch off the thickness of a 10 inch wide board; the only tool I have that is appropriate for this task is my thickness planer.

    A jointer on the other hand isn’t that difficult to do without; hand planing one face flat isn’t that big of a chore, and there’s a lot of ways to straighten and square an edge. A table saw with a taper jig can do it, and you can set up a router table as a jointer, just sideways with the cutter vertical instead of horizontal. Sometimes I like doing that because it’s easier to support the stock laying flat on the table rather than balanced up on edge.

    Combo units do exist, though I tend to prefer to have the tools separate. A combo planer/jointer often has short jointer beds, and the jointer surface is high up off the floor which I find less ergonomic to use. But, in a small shop it might be worth it for the compactness factor.

    Living with power planers

    So, power saws are loud, dusty, electricity demanding machines. Power planers are the next level. My thickness planer is the loudest, thirstiest, dustiest power tool I own. It is outright painful to be near the thing without hearing protection. I’m honestly surprised it’s UL listed with a 5-15 plug on it given the current it pulls. And the manual outright states a shop vac is not adequate, you need a dust collection system. Building that cupboard I posted about not too long ago, I filled a 60 gallon trash can with planer shavings and sawdust.

    Hand planing produces lots of chips and shavings but not as much dust, and it’s quieter.

    Also, planers tend to be rather heavy. Mine weighs about 100 pounds. If your shop would require you to stow this tool a lot, it can be a problem.

    • litchralee@sh.itjust.worksOP
      1·
      1 day ago

      It took me a few reads to internalize everything that you wrote, and it’s food-for-thought for when I level-up to adding another machine to my garage. It does seem that I can wait on the jointer for a long while, and on the thickness planer until my projects start using wider boards or I get really tired of hand planing those.

      Good to know that the combo planer/jointer is not exactly optimal, and I’ll have to keep an eye out for either separate machine that happens to be for sale on the used market.

      I have no other tool that could take a quarter inch off the thickness of a 10 inch wide board; the only tool I have that is appropriate for this task is my thickness planer.

      As it happens, this was precisely what I also had to do for an earlier project, and I ended up using my router table to do it. It was an awful slog of a time, and I hope to never repeat that ever again. Throughout the ordeal, I kept thinking about how a CNC mill would have made quick work of it, but I suspect a used thickness planer is going to be a lot more affordable for me

      • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksM
        2·
        20 hours ago

        You can build a device that is kind of like a CNC gantry without the motors that allows you to manually move a router over a workpiece. I’ve seen people build those for flattening things that can’t or shouldn’t go through a planer like large slabs or end grain cutting boards etc. but yeah for a normal board a thickness planer is the tool for that job.

        Remember: A thickness planer isn’t good at making boards flat by itself, and thickness planers don’t do square. You’ll need some method of flattening and squaring your boards. A jointer is one of many ways to do that. Without a jointer, you’ll need to use one of the many other ways, but the planer alone isn’t enough.