On Sat, 01 Jan 2011 12:26:06 -0500, Ecnerwal
wrote:

Router or circular/table saw and step fence (ie, a fence that registers
on the last groove) will do it faster than you can get done grinding
expensive planer/jointer blades into castellated groove-cutters. That's
a pricey way to have "fun", and you'll also have issues cutting these
dozens of grooves much further than 6" from the edge of the board with a
typical jointer fence setup. I infer that this will leave you with about
12" in the middle un-grooved, since it sounds like you are cutting them
every 1/2" in the 24" direction. That's not a good (safe) direction to
feed a jointer a piece of wood, and kludging up a fence that will get
over another 6" will be a major project.

Have used table saws since the 70s and never seen a step fence. Neat idea
though and I am going to pass it on to the hobbyist builders on another forum
even if I don't wind up using it myself. BTW "indexed miter gauge fence" is a
better search term than "step fence".

And yes the center 12" of the 24' will be a bit tougher to reach with a jointer
than the ends. One thing working in my favor is that my infeed and outfeed
sides of the jointer can be set to the same height. (Rather than the normal
setting where the outfeed is higher by the depth of cut.) This should make it
easer to embed the jointer in a larger table.

Address the _remote_ possibility when and if it becomes real. I'd just
drop them into the CNC router and tell it to get cutting (and that's
what I'd suggest if you look to production tooling - something flexible
that can work unattended), but with a production-line mindset and simple
fence/jigs it will be done before you'd have the jointer kludged into
doing it.

Ooh, I love the way you dream! ;-) Oddly enough one of the two commercial
builders who publishes sales figures uses a CNC router to cut his grooves.

Dado set without the chippers and a sled with the registration on the
tablesaw is probably most efficient.

With the addition of the stepping / registration, exactly what my fall back
plan is if my jointer idea fails.

Or switch to rough-cut lumber rather than plywood and you don't even
need grooves...

Most modern 'rough-cut' is marginally rough enough that some builders use it.
particularly the ones using western cedar or recycled pallet wood. The really
rough, rough-cut lumber seems to also vary in thickness too much for my design.
--
William