Sell me on the SS jointer

[RFGuy]

You really ought to give the real Thein sled technique a try, RFGuy. Thein himself explains it best, in the link I posted earlier. There’s no double-sided tape required — just ordinary wide painter’s tape.

Like you, when I first heard of the technique, the only hot glue gun in my house was a small one that my wife uses for crafts. I quickly concluded that it didn’t have enough glue-melting capacity for any but the smallest planer-sled jobs. So I researched glue guns, and decided on this Surebonder gun. Ten years later, I’d still buy it again.

Actually making the “sandwich” couldn’t be much easier. The only time-consuming part is waiting for the glue gun to heat up. I try to remember to turn it on first, so that it can be heating while I lay down the tape strips. If you’re doing more than one board, even this is a non-problem after the first one.

As for any “mess”, I keep a paper towel under the glue gun to catch any drips while it’s heating or at rest. And with wide tape, it’s no problem to keep the glue blobs entirely on the tape. When you’re done, just throw away the tape strips and the paper towel, and all traces of hot glue are gone.

Dennis,

Thanks. I really respect you guys and appreciate your feedback. The Thein pics are small (even on my 42" LCD monitor) and I had incorrectly assumed it was double sided tape. I am glad you pointed this out because that makes it a little easier in practice. To me that is what old masking tape looked like when I was a kid and I had forgotten about it being beige. All painters tape here is blue and my mind just didn't associate beige with painter/masking tape anymore. Also appreciate the glue gun recommendation and will take a look. I liked the idea of the ShopNotes planer sled a lot better because you basically slap the board on, adjust the leveling feet and start planing. If something needs adjusting mid-stream, stop and adjust it. The hot glue method isn't that difficult, but just a bit more cumbersome in my mind than the ShopNotes version. I know, I need to get over it. So, Thein built it out of Baltic Birch and 3/4" thick which should be stable for a long time. I contemplated doing the same, but routing some channels in it and inserting some steel C channel down the length of the sled to try to ensure long term stability for it, i.e. a good straight and flat surface for a long time. I know, probably overkill, but would welcome thoughts on this. I am also second guessing on the base thickness with JPG's recommendation of 1/4" plywood as a base. A 1/4" plywood base is more likely to deflect and warp over time than a 3/4" plywood base, but is this a problem? The reason I am wondering whether or not the sled base being flat and straight is necessary is that ultimately it gets compressed between the feed rollers and the planer table so it gets conformed to be flat at the point of the cutter head no matter what (unlike a jointer). So, is it important that the Thein sled base be as flat as possible? The only real reason that I can think of is to have a better result on glue up with the hot glue and not have them detach on a pass through the planer perhaps?

[BuckeyeDennis]

Even 3/4” BB plywood will flex somewhat under nothing but the force of gravity. What you have to realize is that when you assemble a Thein sled, you’re actualling building a torsion box (or technically, a “stressed-skin structure”).

The base of the sled becomes the bottom skin, the glue blobs the webbing, and the workpiece itself is the top skin. As soon as the glue sets, the assembly is tremendously stiffer than the base alone. I generally use Melamine shelves for the base, because they’re cheap and flat, and I have a couple lying around. They aren’t very stiff flexurally, but that doesn’t matter, because they’re plenty stiff longitudinally.

Under gravitational loading, a base of reasonable thickness will tend to conform (longitudinally) to whatever surrface it is resting on. So the critical thing is to assemble the sled on a nice flat surface. This ensures that the assembly comes out flat. But likewise, if you assemble the sled on a banana-shaped surface, the assembled sled will come out banana-shaped, which of course defeats the whole purpose.

So no, I wouldn’t put any time or energy into stiffening the base. Invest in a flat assembly surface instead.

[RFGuy]

Dennis,

Thanks. Based on your explanation, it seems to me like it would be important that the sled base be heavy and/or clamped down to a flat workbench during the hot glue step then to ensure a flat & straight reference. So, JPG's idea of 1/4" plywood would probably not work, correct? Meaning it is probably too light and pliable that a slab of 8/4 cherry with some twist could cause deflection by pulling the sled up to it during that step when the glue is hot. I mean, unless you can clamp the 1/4" base down during glue up. My point is it sounds like ideally you would want the sled base to be a flat straight reference on glue up, then after this, the cooled & solidified hot glue "webbing" will provide support, and a reference, for material removal on the top of the twisted board when it goes through the planer.

[BuckeyeDennis]

I’ve never tried (or needed to use) a base that’s less than 3/4” thick, so that would be an interesting experiment. Your concern seems to be about the hot glue deforming the base as the glue cools, presumably due to the glue shrinking as it cools. I’ve never noticed any tendency for it to do that, but could imagine it happening if the base were excessively thin. All I can say for sure is that I’ve never experienced a flatness problem when using 3/4” melamine shelving as the base. If the glue did shrink significantly, though, it wouldn’t take much force for it to pop the painter’s tape off of the melamine, and I’ve never had that happen.

[RFGuy]

I’ve never tried (or needed to use) a base that’s less than 3/4” thick, so that would be an interesting experiment. Your concern seems to be about the hot glue deforming the base as the glue cools, presumably due to the glue shrinking as it cools. I’ve never noticed any tendency for it to do that, but could imagine it happening if the base were excessively thin. All I can say for sure is that I’ve never experienced a flatness problem when using 3/4” melamine shelving as the base. If the glue did shrink significantly, though, it wouldn’t take much force for it to pop the painter’s tape off of the melamine, and I’ve never had that happen.

Exactly. Just wondering if a lighter (advantage) base as JPG suggested could work or not. I would tend to want to over build it, but just trying to contemplate if it matters given that the planer will drive flatness at the entrance of the planer by the feed rollers.

[Erik]

RF Guy,

I routinely use a Thein sled for surface planing (viewtopic.php?p=275317&hilit=Erik#p275317). Initially I stacked 2" OSB and 1" melamine together, but it works so well I have since dropped the OSB and simply use a 1" thick piece of melamine (5'x11"x1"). I have three strips of masking tape running the length of the melamine which works to surface boards from about 4"-11" in width. The only trick -- if there is one at all -- is to assemble the sled on a reliably flat surface. My assembly table is perfect for that. I have run hundreds of boards through this system in the past 5 years and other than replacing the masking tape a couple of times there is little maintenance. Plus, you can't beat the footprint of a 1" board if your shop is on the small side!

-Erik

2023 1104 Thein Sled.jpg (571.34 KiB) Viewed 16135 times

[RFGuy]

I routinely use a Thein sled for surface planing

Thanks Erik. Really appreciate it. I am not getting an 8" or larger jointer anytime soon, so I definitely need to revisit this again and build a Thein sled this time. My shop is small because it is one car bay out of my garage. One side is the garage door (with router table in front of it) and the opposing one is eaten up with an 8' Gladiator workbench that is my electronics workstation area. It is a 3 car garage and I must park 2 vehicles because it is just too hot in the AZ desert to leave cars outside. So, one long side has no wall for cabinetry, etc., but I do have my workbench there. The other long wall is available but not full because sometimes I need to push my Mark V against the wall for more floor space. Once a project of any size is in the space, there really isn't room for additional tools and still be a usable shop to me, which is why I keep holding off on adding more machines. In short, I will probably never have a standalone 8" jointer or any other standalone tool here unless I reinvent something in this space. I am fortunate in that there is a small storage closet off the back of my garage which is where my Shopsmith planer, miter saw and Festool gear (in Systainers) get stored when not in use. Without this, it would be even more cramped in my shop.

[jsburger]

Here is the latest podcast from Fine Woodworking. Yes the title is All Bandsaws but they answer a viewer question about not having a jointer. It starts at the 50 min. mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRQHHBNH27c

One premise I found interesting is there is a difference between flat and smooth. One side of a board does not have to be smooth to run the other side through the planer. It only needs to be flat, enough points of contact to not rock or flex. Put that side down and run it. Now you have one flat smooth surface. Then turn the board over and run the other side.

So with a planer sled you don't have to finish plane the first side. Just get it flat, take it off the sled turn it over and run the unplaned side. Put that side down and finish the first side.

[RFGuy]

John,

Good analogy (comparing jointing with a planer sled to hand planing one side to "flat" before running through a power planer). Thanks.

[edflorence]

Spec wise, it looks like I could get a new Grizzly jointer with a spiral cutterhead delivered cheaper than the SS one, and still have a larger table overall.

Thanks everyone who contributed to this thread so far...it s been an interesting read, and I don't have too much to add, except to go back to a question that the OP had about the Grizzly with the spiral cutterhead. A couple of reasons i have been happy with the SS jointer are 1) as with all the SS tools it doesn't take up much space, and this is really important in a small shop and 2) when I bought the jointer I remember that one of its selling points was that a panel made of 3" pieces would ultimately remain more stable than a wide single board. This seemed an important consideration then and still seems important now. So for me and the projects I have made, the width capacity is less of an issue than the footprint. If I do need to plane something wide, I can use my planer with shims or a jig. That said, as others have posted, most of the use my SS jointer gets is for edge jointing.

Now...if I could get a jointer with a spiral cutterhead for less $$ than an SS would I? Probably yes, based on all I have read and heard about how easy it is to rotate the spiral cutters to get a new edge. It seems like a much less fussy procedure than changing blades.