On Sun, 20 Nov 2005 22:51:33 -0800, charlie b wrote:

The idea of passing a board acrossed the top of the cutter head of a
planer to face join one face before planing the other face parallel has
been around for a while and the combination is available on several
currently available machines - and at a size and with jointer tables long
enough to handle furniture sized stock. Felder/Hammer, Robland, Rojek,
Mini Max and others all have such units, all with 3+ HP TEFC motors. The
combination will let you flatten one face, regardless of whether it's
bowed, cupped or TWISTED.

Your description of your idea begs several questions 1. can it do the job
on a TWISTED piece of stock? 2. what's the max depth of cut per pass? 3.
what feed rate at maximum depth of cut? 4. will it work on green or
resinous wood
without gumming up?
5. what is the functional life expectancy of the medium
used to remove the wood?
6. what is the cost of replacement of whatever
it is that removes the wood?
7. How thin can the stock be goiing into the unit? 8. will it produce a
straight, flat edge that is
square to one flat face?
9. can the planer set up be kept when going
back to joining one face?
10. joining and planing generate a great deal
of "waste" - can they effectively be removed
with a dust collector?
11. how complicated/complex is the set up?

charlie b

GOOD questions. First, see my previous post about the existing over/under
designs. Also - my design gets the same oomph from a smaller motor (yes,
TEFC, but I can do a similar depth-of-cut with about half the horses due
to how it works -- and, sorry, that gets into Nukleer Seekrits). I HAVE
tested this a bit on the usual B.E. maple, walnut, cocobolo, etc., as well
as my Terror Test: Ipe'. It's a nasty, tool-eatin' wood. If
you've never worked Ipe' -- Google it. It has fine silica particles which
blunt tool-edges fast, often roey grain, and is both hard and tough.
GORGEOUS, though, and cheap as heck. The big, interesting problem with it
is that they mill it in the rainforest to finished size, then ship it up
to us with our -- let's say SLIGHTLY different -- humidity. So some of my
Ipe' boards have been doozies.

1. Yes, it'll do twisted -- see Ipe', above ;-). I'm still refining that
part of the design, but so far, it's pretty good.

2,3. Not sure yet. I'm working on increasing the usable width-of-cut, so
there're a lot of variables to be worked out: motor HP, depth-of-cut,
width, etc. (Please realize that YOUR question has a few variables left
out -- you can take a much deeper cut, at a higher feed rate, in clear
pine or DF, than in red oak. ;-)

4.) Again, not sure. I do have some local tree-cutters drop off some
log-sections -- lately got a few hundred lbs. of unsplit black walnut and
figured olive, nearly 12" across, unchecked, and probably 20+" long) in a
load of FIREWOOD, for heck's sake! They're sitting in the shop with
paraffin on the ends for a while as I think about what to do with 'em. But
- I don't usually work with wet/green wood until it's stabilized, so I
don't know. Resinous -- I'd be glad to test that out -- what do you
suggest, or have the most problem with?

5-6.) It's HSS at this point. It's also got a nifty design that allows the
end-user to sharpen the cutting parts VERY easily, without needing
high-precision. (KEY BENEFIT: unlike all common jointers/planers, the
blades can be sharpened and re-installed WITHOUT recalibration or
complicated setup/tweaking.) Current guess: the parts can be sharpened
quite a number of times, then replaced for something like $20-40 total.

7.) How thin? VERY thin. Think guitar fretboards of REAL brazilian
rosewood.

8.) No, at least, not yet. Currently, I'm just working on a machine to do
two flat, parallel opposing faces. So, the "traditional" function of a
jointer -- to do EDGES -- is not part of this. Ironic, I know. However,
that's part of "Phase II". And it's easy to "joint" an edge with a router
and a straightedge, or a tablesaw (which is what I do), so that's not such
a big worry at this point.

9.) I think I understand your question -- can you keep the depth-of-cut
setting on the planer, but joint the first-face on a new board? I'll have
to think about that. How important is that? Wouldn't you joint the first
face of all your boards first, then start to thickness-plane them?

10.) Dust collection is excellent. Probably considerably better than
either jointers or planers.

11.) Setup is pretty straightforward. Can you elaborate on what you
dislike about setup with either a jointer or a planer? (Table height
difference on a jointer, e.g.?)

Andrew