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Leon[_7_] Leon[_7_] is offline
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Default Safe To Use Feather Board Beyond Blade For Jointing Sled?

On 1/10/2021 5:16 PM, knuttle wrote:
On 1/10/2021 4:25 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote:
On Sunday, January 10, 2021 at 2:13:59 PM UTC-5, Leon wrote:
On 1/10/2021 11:33 AM, DerbyDad03 wrote:
On Sunday, January 10, 2021 at 11:35:29 AM UTC-5, DerbyDad03 wrote:
I know that you should never use a featherboard beyond the blade
when ripping a board, but what about when using a jointing sled?

I built one of these last night so I can cleanup some rough poplar.
I do not have a jointer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUubLPQozzQ

Is there any danger of using a featherboard before and after the
blade just to hold the sled tight to the fence? The board being
joined would pass over both featherboards. Only the sled would have
pressure exerted upon it.

Thanks.

Here's a link to the sled in use vs the whole build process:

https://youtu.be/eUubLPQozzQ?t=63

No. There should be no issue. The problem is when waste is pushed back
into the blade by a feather board after the cut.

Even with out the jig or sled, if the piece you are cutting is not a
through cut there should be no issue with using a feather board past the
cut.
For instance when cutting groves.


Yep, that's what I thought but I just wanted to make sure.

While I was waiting to confirm my intuition, I came up with another
method:

I clamped an "extension fence" to my outfeed table which gave me
something to
push the sled against as it passed the blade. It worked, but being
able to let the
featherboard do the work for me would be preferable. Next time.

The lumber yard I frequent no longer carries S4S poplar and the big
box store stuff
is absolutely terrible. The lumber yard owner said that most of the
S4S stuff she'd
been getting lately was dropping in quality, wetter than she likes,
etc. "Construction
grade" was how she described it.

Now she sells skip-planned boards, 4/4, 9" - 12" wide, 8' - 12' long.
$3.28/bf. It
milled up pretty nice for some drawers I'm making for my daughter's
kitchen.




I think that the tension of the figures of the outfeed feather board is
critical to the question of safety.

Generally when one thinks of a feather board, the finger have a lot of
tension to hold the piece tightly against the fence as it is fed into
the blade.

I routinely use feather boards on the outfeed side of the blade. These
outfeed feather board are adjusted so they have minimum finger tension
ie just touch the piece.Â* This slight tension helps keep the board
against the fence and minimize wiggling as the last few inches of the
piece pass through the area between the blade and fence.


Still not a good idea ESPECIALLY if you are cutting s2s or rougher lumber.



During the time a long piece passes this through this area, the inertia
of the piece keeps it from wiggling around a lot. But with a short piece
and without the outfeed feather board; you can get a few 64th of an inch
of wiggle as it passes this final point.Â* This gives blade burning and
the binding could send the piece across the room.

As everyone has said you don't use outfeed feather board (with tension)
on the outfeed side, but this is the only solution I can think of with
short boardsÂ* I suppose a second fence on the out feed side, set to the
width of the piece would work but this inflexible fence does not seem a
like a good idea.